Challenged at the top level

Coming as I do from a long line of hairless wonders, baldness has fascinated me since childhood. One of my earliest memories is of my father harvesting and boiling nettles to produce a concoction which he then spread on his pate in the hope of checking the premature departure of his hair. What was more memorable was the following morning when, despite repeated shampooing, he appeared at the breakfast table with a bright green head. Memorable too, no doubt, to the 600 boys to whom he was headmaster and who he would shortly have to face in assembly.

My father subsequently abandoned any attempt to interfere with nature’s plans for his hair, and this book would cheer his decision. It charts the history of attitudes to baldness; lists famous Mr Sheens (including the bald bard of Avon); enumerates ‘cures’ (bat’s milk, frog extract, mole blood); considers possible causes (eating fish, thinking too much, improper breathing); and assesses the problems of wigs and weaves.