Legendary Huddersfield journalist and author DENIS KILCOMMONS is a natural storyteller who brings everyday subjects to life in his own inimitable style. Denis wrote a hugely popular column in the Huddersfield Examiner for 34 years until his retirement in 2023. Now he’s back from a break and writing for Huddersfield Hub.
Long hair became fashionable with The Beatles in the 1960s.
Really long hair started a few years later when a whole generation of young people found they were really hippies at heart after hearing Scott MacKenzie sing San Francisco (Be Sure To Wear Flowers In Your Hair) in 1967.
This was the year I started wearing a kaftan, blue jeans, an Afghan coat and beads around my neck, although not when I went to the Blackpool Evening Gazette office where I worked at the time.
In the summer of 1967 I called into an off-licence in Whitegate Drive, a good two miles inland from the wildness of the Prom, in full regalia and with shoulder length hair to buy a Watney’s Party Seven.
It was Blackpool so they had seen all manner of sights before but I was, I have to admit, eye catching in all my glory.
The transaction was conducted in silence by a chap in a cardigan behind the counter whose eyes widened in shock and amazement.
Perhaps it was the flowers in my hair. Yes, I had them behind an ear. Or perhaps he was doubting my sanity for buying a Party Seven which was possibly the worst beer of any generation and only popular because it came in a seven pint can.
I have worn my hair long ever since. I once asked Alan Chapman, Honley’s legendary hairdresser, if he would cut my hair short for a change. He point blank refused.
When I asked why he said: “Because you’d look like a right twit.’’ Or a similar four letter word.
My hair remains long by choice although I attempt to trim the density with an electric hair cutting device that takes out chunks at a time, although not necessarily the chunks I intended to remove. On occasions this gives me a lopsided head. Which is a novelty.
As my hair has always been full while the locks of friends have thinned or drifted away over the years, I wondered what I would look like bald.
A few years ago, in the infancy of photoshop techniques, I produced the attached picture of me without hair.
I had been hoping for an academic look. Intelligent, inspirational even. I had in mind Patrick Stewart as Jean-Luc Picard in Star Trek. Someone to follow into the depths of space without hesitation.
But all I looked like was somebody’s grandad, which I am.
My hair remains long and I remain a hippy.
Love and peace man.
