I looked like Leo Sayer’s sister

HERE I am, circa 1983, sporting the most preposterous poodle perm. My hair was so big, it should have come with its own ‘maximum headroom’ warning.

Back then, it was essential not only to have a perm, but also to have high hair.

Every self-respecting twenty-something’s hair was expected to be unfeasibly curly, and it was never allowed to be flat.

So the minute a perm started to grow out on top — at the first hint that it couldn’t be teased into a gravity- defying pompadour — we’d rush to the salon to have what we called a ‘root’ perm.

How many hours did I fritter away in thrall to the tyranny of my high-maintenance hairdo? I dread to imagine. But I do know that, for an entire decade during the Eighties, I never left the house unless I looked as if I was wearing a fuzzy microphone on my head.

I was 19 when I had my first perm, in 1976. I went into the salon with my sleek, dark hair flicked back at the sides — we all looked like low-budget versions of Farrah Fawcett at the time — and came out resembling Leo Sayer’s sister.

I can’t think what possessed me, other than a desire to be in the vanguard of fashion. I was in my first year at university, and the change in my appearance was so dramatic that even my Anglo-Saxon tutor noticed.

‘What on earth have you done to your lovely hair?’ he asked, aghast, as I arrived for a tutorial with a barnet treble its usual volume.

I took it as a compliment. If Dr Gough thought it looked awful, surely it must be all right.