Lockdown haircuts: Here's how to avoid the full-on Howard Hughes look – Susan Morrison

Susan Morrison is monitoring politicians with suspiciously well-manicured hair, while her husband takes matters into his own hands with dramatic results

Nicola Sturgeon cuts the hair of David Torrance MSP for charity in September last year (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire)

Howard Hughes. Remember him? The original mad millionaire. He was the pioneer of lockdown living, holing up in luxury hotels, shunning the sun and walking on paper hankies because he was germaphobic. No-one was allowed near him. Last photos of the man who once dated Ava Gardner showed a shambling wreck with long uncut nails and scraggy, unkempt hair.

We are all Howard Hughes now. As we shuffle back to something like normality, we have trouble keeping the hair out of our eyes. According to my sources, and by that I mean, the friendly staff of Superdrug in the Kirkgate, sales of clips, scrunchies and tangle-free ponytail bands have gone through the roof. When the hairdressers reopen, it’ll be to the sound of women weeping in gratitude.

Of course, we’re not all in this together. Just as there are those who can make trips to second homes and trot about bluebell woods whilst the rest of us have to make do with council crocuses in Pilrig Park, some people would seem to have access to grooming professionals whilst the rest of us look like the Count of Monte Cristo after his jail break.

I can’t be the only one staring at newsreaders wondering just how she keeps that fringe so neat. There’s a lovely woman on BBC Scotland. Razor sharp that blunt cut is. You’re not telling me she’s been hacking in the bathroom with a pair of kitchen scissors in one hand and one eye on a DIY hairdressing YouTube video playing on her phone.

Don’t think the blokes escape scrutiny. Look at the cabinet. Aside from that asinine twerp of a PM – and if ever a man needed a hairdresser, it’s that one – the rest of them appear suspiciously well turned out. That lad who runs the Treasury. The 12-year-old. Looks like he’d get ID-d if he tried to buy a bottle of Mad Dog 20/20. Seems capable enough, but I can’t help but think his mum brushes him down and tells him to play nice when he leaves the house in the morning. Notice his hair? Looks like a barber job to me. There are even moments when I cast a glance at the back of Nicola’s head to check out that very neat line above the collar.

You want to see a politician with full-on lockdown hair? Check out Justin Trudeau, currently rocking the Boyband Lead Singer look.

We’ve become suspicious, and rightly so. It’s my understanding that there are – and only whisper this, people – guerrilla hairdressers. The rumour runs that if you can make contact with the Resistance, they swoop in with clips and trimmer to do battle with even the most out-grown shaggy bob under cover of darkness, like superheroes. Well, they’ve got the capes.

Here’s how to sort out your hair lads (if you like the Soviet sub look)

Somewhere out there, undercover hairdressers are plying their trade like bootleggers in prohibition America. Ask me not how to contact them. I have heard tales of people in supermarkets spotting stylists in the queue and sidling up to ask quietly for a quick once over with the trimmers.

Here in Leith I thought I saw a major deal going down, perhaps an entire shampoo, condition, cut and colour, but it just turned out to be dope. Should have guessed, really. Neither party to the exchange looked like grooming was high on the agenda. Or personal hygiene, as I discovered when I stood downwind for a moment.

I assume these secret scissor sisters, and brothers, of course, have had to modify the chat. “Going anywhere nice for your holidays” isn’t much of a conversation starter when the answer is pretty much guaranteed to be “no”.

In this house, the demand for professional assistance was high, and not by me. Women are ok, we can get by with tie-backs and clips, but I married a man with luxuriant hair. In the 80s he was distinctly bouffant. It is thick, and wavy and grows faster than weeds in my garden and boy, do they grow fast.

He complained that he couldn’t get a hat on. This was odd, because I wasn’t aware that he had a yearning to sport a fedora.

Anyway, he took action, without consulting with me, I might add. He did that before. He once shaved off his moustache without prior family consultation. Not even the cat spoke to him after that. He had to wait until it grew back.

He bought a gadget from Amazon. He read the instructions and decided he’d go for the Number 4. Is that how men do hairdressing? What about the magazines, the coffee, the “Ooo, love, who did this to you”? Is it just ‘Number 4, please’? This lockdown has been a revelation to me.

He did it, you know. Despite my reservations. And it worked, if he was going for the “skipper of a Soviet nuclear sub circa 1979” look.

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