Phil Brown: ‘I’m not bald, just follicly challenged’
Arts Editor Phil Brown says his ‘unruly’ hairstyle hides a stark truth - that he is fighting for his follicles.
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I woke with the title of a poem in my head. I am the author of two slim volumes of verse so that’s not all that unusual. The title was rather telling:In The Last Days of Hair. My subconscious was clearly at work because yes, I will admit it, I am follicly challenged. Not bald mind you, like my dear old dad was.
He became an “eggshell blonde” at 30 and embraced it. The cause of his baldness was, he said, that his brain was expanding.
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His brother Cyril, my favourite uncle, was, however, always in denial about his receding hairline. He used to do a massive comb-over. When we all went swimming his hair trailed behind him and he used to crack it like a stock whip. I have held onto my locks far longer than they did but I do find myself facing the fact that now there isn’t as much as there used to be.
I wear my hair in an unruly fashion to confuse people and in the vain hope that they won’t notice what’s going on. That’s denial, too. I know that deep down.
Now I know there are businesses that promise they can regrow your hair. I have seen the ads on television but responding to them would be an admission of defeat and I am not ready to throw the towel in just yet.
I am undertaking some treatment recommended by one of my hairdressers (yes I have a couple) who has me on these lotions that I apply each morning. It has the effect of thickening the hair. Has anyone noticed? Nobody has said anything but perhaps they are just being polite. It has been suggested that this is too little, too late and I should just let nature take its course.
And I get the point. I am approaching what my late friend and mentor, the poet Bruce Dawe once described in a poem as “the place of baldness, That solemn high country some get to earlier than others”.
Like my dad and like Bruce himself. Bruce is the only other poet I know who has written about baldness. Although my poem isn’t written yet. But as the follicles fall the words may follow, dammit.