The Times Magazine 7Spinal column Melanie Reid
‘Dave refused to cut my hair. So I started
hacking – with only three working fingers’
bout a week
ago, I reached
breaking point
with my hair.
Over the past
year it had
grown so long,
thick and curly
that it had become an alien life
form hiding behind the back of
my head. Matted upwards by daily
wearing of polo-necks, and matted
downwards by grinding against
the pillow every night, because
I can’t lift my head in bed, it was
unbrushable, impenetrable and
maddening. Even my tats had
tats. I felt as unclean as a canine
cruelty case.
Something had to be done.
Neither my husband nor my
carer, when I asked them to cut
it, wanted the responsibility. So it
was up to someone with only one
properly working arm and three
semi-functional fingers at the
end of it.
Needs must, however. Even
if I could only hack off the worst,
I reasoned, I’d feel free. No one
cared what I looked like. I could
wear a woolly hat on Zoom.
I ordered hairdressers’ scissors
from Boots. The finger holes were
small and I would have to use
a thumb and second finger for
steadiness. I strategised, testing
how high I could lift my arms
together (not far) and for how
long (not long).
Operation Chop began when
Dave was walking the dog. I faced
up to the mirror in my bathroom
and put on my wheelchair rain
cape, took two deep breaths and
then, because it was the easier
side, started hacking the long bits
on the left of my face. There are,
I believe, YouTube videos on how
to cut your own hair. Not for
tetraplegics, there aren’t.Once, as a student, I went with
a flatmate to get our long hair
permed (it was the late Seventies,
and long before my hair went
weirdly curly). It took hours, cost
a fortune. When we got home,
J decided she hated hers. She
coolly disappeared into the
bathroom with a big pudding
bowl and a pair of scissors, and
came out 30 minutes later shorn,
gamin and sexy, the bowl piled
with curls.
I’d Facetimed her the other
day and she’d just cut her hair
again. We laughed at the memory.
Well, now it was my turn to do
the same.The sound of that first
crisp slice felt both dangerous
and glorious. Four inches,
I reckoned, round the bottom,
then graduating up the back,
leaving the length on top.
The bottom was relatively
easy: cutting by sight on either
side by contorting, then round
the back by the feel of the steel
blade resting on my neck near the
hairline, snipping blind as straight
as possible.
There was no subtlety
whatsoever. The hair was coming
away in handfuls, huge brown
curls, bold and shocking in the
TOM JACKSON handbasin. My right arm was
A
getting tired. I had to support it
with my left arm. The back of my
head was difficult. Twisting my
head as far as a wheelchair would
let me, I strained and hacked.
What’s the hairdressing term?
“Choppy.” I was going for choppy.
Occasionally, I stopped and
panted, arms burning. The hair
was coming off in lumps, dense
knots months in the making.
Bird nest material.
When I’d cut as much of the
back as I could, I tried combing
it. It was still matted. Short as I’d
cut it, the hair was so fine it was
meshed even closer to my scalp.
I brushed it out, painfully, and
saw that I would have to cut it
all over again: unfurled, there was
still an amazing length of hair
there, sticking out in great peaks.
I left the top long to disguise
the crudity of the work. Curls are
forgiving. Every haircut is two
weeks away from its best.
By the time I’d finished I was
exhausted and the offcuts reached
the taps of the handbasin. OK,
it was probably a bit PoW from
behind, but I felt light, happy and
liberated. Proud, too. I’d achieved
something. I had my head back.
And here’s the joke. Dave
didn’t actually notice at first.
Then he didn’t believe me until
I showed him the cuttings.
Both he and Janice, my carer,
considered me barmy for doing
it, but offered grudging respect.
The worrying thing is
that Dave, vainest man in the
world, and distressed at his own
dishevelled hair, has asked me
to trim his too. This, genuinely,
is a task to be nervous about. n@Mel_ReidTimes
Melanie Reid is tetraplegic after
breaking her neck and back in
a riding accident in April 2010