Youth is wasted on the young, and hair – I’ve come to learn – is wasted on all of you. You, whoever is reading this, have great hair. Run your hands through it. Have a little play. Isn’t it great?

The day I lost my hair was one of the worst days of my life. I know: it sounds hyperbolic. Believe me, I mean it. My chemotherapy nurse had told me that if my hair was going to fall out as a result of treatment, it would start to happen two weeks after my first round. Like clockwork, it happened, first in little tufts, like fairy floss being pulled from its stick, and then in wrenching clumps that turned my stomach.