Eraser

I don’t remember there being so many things to worry about when I was younger. Perhaps worrying is something that comes with age. When I was 14 or so, I recall a conversation with my mum, who told me that she was glad not to be a teenager nowadays, with all the drugs and crime and glue sniffing. I found this incredible as she had grown up in North London during the Second World War, and I imagined that much of her teenage years had been spent in bomb shelters. But she said it was exciting; that they were happy times, which I found unbelievable although she insisted that it was true.

She was obsessed with glue sniffing; was convinced that I was a glue sniffer and would repeatedly warn me about the dangers every time I got a spot on my face. I didn’t have many spots, but when I did, they were of the huge red angry volcano variety, popping up in the most prominent of positions, such as on the tip of my nose (the Rudolf jokes- can you imagine!) And she would tell me once again how dangerous it was to sniff glue, and check my pockets for evidence.

There must have been a solvents purge around that time, as after that, there never seemed to be any in the house. My mum was often protective and had been known to remove hazards which possessed dangers of which I wasn’t aware. For example, at the age of 9 or 10, I found The Diary of Anne Frank on a bookshelf in the living room. I started reading and really enjoyed it. But then just as unpleasant things started to happen, the book disappeared, never to be seen again. I think she did me a favour on that occasion, but I really wish she hadn’t taken the Tipp-ex. People make mistakes, and I made more than most. Tipp-ex would have helped me a lot during my teen years.

A school friend of mine also came to regret using inappropriate substances on her face. For her Drama O’ Level examination, she was tasked with recreating a television advertisement, and chose Hamlet cigars. The Hamlet adverts famously featured situations where things went horribly wrong, but lighting a cigar made everyone forget their troubles. My friend acted out buying a new type of spot cream, but ‘accidentally’ used black boot polish instead of the cream. When she looked in the mirror and realised her mistake, she lit up a Hamlet and smiled. A great idea, and so the legend goes, she received a grade A for her marvellous performance. Sadly her problems really began when the exam was over, and she tried to remove the boot polish. Of course, it was wouldn’t come off and she was mortified that she had to travel home on the bus. She didn’t come to school the next day and when she did return, her complexion could best be described as ruddy. Not sure if it was chemicals or a scrubbing brush.

We all do daft things when we are young. My sister once offered to cut my hair when I was 8 and she was old enough to have known better. My mum was shopping at the time or she would have stepped in. But my sister seemed to know what she was doing, holding my hair taut between her fingers as she snipped away with a pair of dress making scissors. I don’t know how far she got before she realised it wasn’t as easy as it looked, or how long she kept snipping after the penny dropped. There were no nearby mirrors so I was completely oblivious. But when my mum returned, I was swept into the car for an emergency hair appointment and returned looking like a boy with very short hair. You would have thought that I would have learnt an important lesson there, to leave it to the professionals. But aged 14, and desperately wanting a new image, I decided it was once again time to put the dressmaking scissors to use.

I sat in my bedroom, in front of the dressing table mirror and hacked away at one side of my hair until I had achieved the look I wanted. And then, turning my attentions to the back, I also cut that very short, before covering it all with a tub of the green watery hair gel that everyone used to buy from Superdrug in 1983, and drying it into spikes. My image was transformed forever. Or at least until I decided to grow it into a bob, which has been my hairstyle of choice ever since.

My own daughters have also been guilty of errors of judgement, and for T, the most memorable was when she cut her fringe, aged six, timing it perfectly to coincide with Christmas. I was horrified, as it was so short that I couldn’t even put a hair slide in to disguise what she had done. She was left with a line of tufts, a bit like Noddy’s fringe, perfect for all of those Christmas parties.

Hair is the bane of L’s life and every day she wishes that she had normal hair, like everyone else. She is desperate to dye it – silver, violet, blue or pink, or to have ‘bangs’ which I initially thought meant pigtails, due to it being plural, and raced for the hair bobbles, but have now discovered that it is American for a fringe. Note to self, next time I am in the library, with an old lady reading over my shoulder, I should not search Urban Dictionary to find out the meaning of ‘Bangs’. Oops! Strictly speaking, she was in the wrong.

We have come to an agreement, that once L is 18, with money of her own (hoping), she can decide what colour her hair will be. I am happy for her to have a new hairstyle. However, I have warned her that having a fringe (refusing to call it bangs) might not be the right thing, as her hair will just spring up and do its own thing, like it did when she was tiny.

As a baby, when her hair finally started to grow, it was really curly and wild, and I had no idea what to do with it. So I just brushed it. The first time I took her to Linda the hairdresser for a trim, Linda (not known for her tact) said

‘Oh my, she’s just like a little scarecrow!”

Bit rude! Although technically she was right, and L did look like a scarecrow, and continued to, until one day, a curly haired friend of my sister said

‘you mustn’t brush it, use your fingers’, and life became easier. As she has grown, she has learned how to tame it when she wants it tame, and to embrace the curls when she is feeling a little wilder.

She has managed to bypass the haircutting stage and moved straight onto the self tattooing. Last Summer, armed with Indian ink and a needle, she gave herself what can only be described as prison tattoos. She managed to keep them hidden for a few days (they were fairly inconspicuous) and when I spotted them and saw what they were, I did not shout, but told her what they signified and how they would be viewed by others. The next time I saw them, the ink had been scrubbed off and now she has two tiny purple scars, which are marginally preferable to what was there before. However, it is not the end of the world, and we all make mistakes. Otherwise there would be no need for Tipp-ex.

In other news, I have returned to running, and am back to reluctantly running 5k three times a week. I still find it a struggle to get out of the door, and have to wrestle with my head to finish the run each time. So today I have tried something new. As a library convert, I have found that I can download ebooks and audiobooks to my phone for free. There are so many books that I want to read, but never enough time. Yesterday I decided that I would try to kill a couple of birds, distracting my reluctant running brain, by listening to an audiobook whilst running, in place of my usual Northern Soul playlist. And it worked. I haven’t used audio books previously and wasn’t sure if I would like them, but I really did. And I am going to further incentivise my running by only allowing myself to listen to the audio books when I run. My first is called ‘Jack and Bet’ by Sarah Butler, and is good so far. Let’s hope it works – I need something to keep me going, and to take my mind off what is happening around me.

This virus seems to be taking hold and I am finding that people are falling into one of two camps, a bit like they did with Brexit. Either taking it very seriously or saying it’s all a farce, and very little inbetween. Neither side seems to be respectful or even care about the thoughts or opinions of the other, and it’s all getting quite nasty. I am of the opinion that nobody knows what is best, (much like Brexit), but I would prefer the authorities to err on the side of caution, to learn from other countries, and for vulnerable people to be protected. And really just for everyone to be kind and considerate, for example by not buying all the handwash, so there is none left for old people who might be more at risk.

I don’t like the way the world is going much, and hope that we will soon get back to being more community minded, more thoughtful and kinder. It feels like dark times, let’s hope, in the words of Mama Cass (and many others before her) ‘the darkest hour is just before the dawn’, and that there will be a massive turnaround, with people in general realising that they need to look out for each other and for the planet. There are some mistakes that even Tipp-ex cannot erase.