Born and Bred

Before Christmas I was browsing through old snaps looking for one of me with big hair. Huge hair. I used to have a great mass of the stuff, what the apprentices who always made a dive for me in the next batch of paupers waiting for a cheap haircut at the Vidal Sassoon hairdressing school in Ken High Street kindly called "strong". Always flattered by this supreme display of popularity, I once made the mistake of asking why they all charged towards me. "It's so easy to cut thick hair like yours," I was told. How I longed for smooth, sleek tresses that shone in the light. No straighteners or products then; conditioner had only just entered my orbit. My newspaper even did a 'before and after' piece when a new, much-lauded hairdresser came to town, and I was his chosen guinea pig. But that was then. Be careful what you ask for. Now I watch in dismay as hair lines the bath when I wash it, and then sheds itself again all over my white duvet when I dry it. My head is cold when I go out in less-than-warm temperatures, and wearing a hat as I must just flattens it to my head even more. Whatever happened?

Hunting through the photo albums I quickly became distracted by others that I love. Here on most of the pages are my babies, bright and eager and innocent. Once I might have thought that each child was a tabula rasa, a blank canvas waiting to be written on. Nurture before nature. Of course it is not so. Maybe 50-50, I'd guess now. They come as themselves into the world, and woe betide you if you try to change who they are, mould them into any shape other than their own. You are the facilitator who opens doors in their minds, and creates a safe space where they can develop their talents and personalities. That's the theory anyway, or my version of it. It's what I aimed for, and didn't always manage to achieve. I guess it's called parenting.

But look what has happened! The child on the left is the agent of award-winning clients, head of comedy, new owner of a glamorous and classy paeony-coloured velvet sofa. It's pretty safe to say that she has become herself, and will continue to flourish as nature intended. And on the right we have an acclaimed journalist and writer, creator of a magnificent garden. Nature is self-evident there too. I must have wondered often what they would become, what they would do with their lives. In my craziest dreams I could never have imagined that it would be this.