Friends’ tribute to Lisa

FRIENDS of a Honley mum who died after battling depression have raised funds to support others struggling with mental health problems.

Lisa Highton, 45, who owned Bare Waxing and Beauty Specialists in Honley, died in January and her death devastated her friends.

Now her friends at Southgate Rooms in Honley are sticking to what they know best and have organised a charity head shave or chest wax under the event name ‘Lose the hair for Bare.’

Lisa’s friend and customer of Southgate Rooms, Torz Kelly, plucked up the courage to have her head shaved and her 14-year-old daughter had an undercut, where the sides are cut short or shaved.

Other volunteers Tayler Walsh, Christian Auty, Paul Carmody, Darren Hair and Jake Gibb had their chests waxed.

Samantha Clarke, co-owner of Southgate Rooms, said: “It was all about coming together to raise as much money as possible in Lisa’s memory to help others with mental health.

“It was a fantastic event. We had more than 50 people in the salon watching and over a hundred on our Facebook Live so it had a great support.

“We did a countdown from 10 and there was a great buzz in the salon. Local businesses donated raffle prizes and in total we’ve raised over £2,000 which is incredible.” Samantha said they chose to donate to the charity Mind. She added: “It’s a shame there isn’t more awareness of mental health and it’s tragically taken a lot of lives for it get to the point where this is changing. “Mind does a fantastic job and we hope our event can go some way to getting that help to those in need.” It’s not too late to donate to the appeal via https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/ losethehairforbare For anyone who is suffering, Samaritans are available to talk 24 hours a day, seven days a week on 116 123.