. . . . there's a story behind the hairpiece
QUEENIE TURNED THE grand age of 65 last week. I know she won’t mind me saying that. Well, I think she won’t mind. In the past when my mother-in-law-in-waiting has mentioned her regular appearances in this column over the last 11 years she has offered a distinctly Wildean take on the subject. To paraphrase: “The only thing worse than being written about in Róisín’s column is not being written about.” So here I am testing her attention-loving philosophy to the absolute max.
One of her birthday presents to herself was a hairpiece. Queenie is one of those people always on the lookout for appendages to grant her eternal youth. It could be a pair of designer jeans from TK Maxx or a blusher from a new make-up counter. She draws the line at Botox but a hairpiece, she reckoned, would freshen up her look. “Just for holidays.”
There’s a story behind the hairpiece. Lynda who makes them got the idea for her business after her husband died of cancer two years ago at the age of 42. A hairdresser for the past 30 years, she became seriously ill when he died. The stress of grief made her anaemic and caused all her hair to fall out. There were days when because of her illness – “a sort of breakdown”, she calls it – she couldn’t walk. But while it may sound strange to people who have never experienced hair loss, she always felt that the worst side effect of how sick she got was the lack of hair. “When your hair’s not right, nothing is,” she says.
So as she recovered and her own hair started to grow back, she began investigating products that would help other people with their hair loss.
She studied with experts in Brighton and now provides a personalised service from her home. Customers include fashion forward already hirsute teenagers who want to have cascades of curls one night and a Jessie J fringe the next. And they include people like Queenie who fancy a bit of a hair make-over. But most are looking for an antidote to the problem of disappearing or disappeared hair.
I was worried it would look like a toupee, to be honest. But when Queenie descended the stairs with the thing clipped on her head, she looked pretty much the same except even better. You would never know that she was wearing what one son keeps calling “a rug”. I tell her she should wear it all the time, not just on holidays. She beams.
Then we have one of our chats. The fanciability of Simon Cowell is a regular theme. But today she wants to know what I think of this Facebook thing. I tell her I don’t do the Facebook thing. She doesn’t either but reckons it’s a godsend for nosey parkers. She has a few acquaintances who don’t do the Facebook thing but have sons or daughters who do. These pass on information to their mothers and fathers about what the world and his ex-wife are doing. So Queenie keeps getting calls telling her who has married who, or who’s divorcing who or who’s been wearing very little on holidays in Ibiza. Queenie is not averse to a bit of gossip but this Facebook thing is taking things to another, slightly worrying, she reckons, level.
She takes the rug off to cook the dinner. On Sundays she spends most of the morning shoving things in the oven and peeling and chopping to create the various meals that might be requested by her family. This week’s Sunday Dinner consisted of chicken breasts, salmon steaks and roast beef, which she distinguishes from the chicken by calling it “meat”, along with all the vegetables and potatoes. There’s something for everyone. A health-conscious daughter, a husband who likes well-cooked “meat” and grandchildren with a fish obsession. While she is cooking, I head off to the Lough Neagh Discovery Centre in Lurgan where the mute swans are nesting by the wooden bridge and the swallows have returned. We come here for duck-feeding but also because the Loughside Cafe is pretty much one of the only places open in the area on a Sunday morning.
Except for here, where the wildflower meadows are in full bloom. Where at 11am there are already people queuing up for Sunday dinner. Chicken chasseur, or peppered pork or great slabs of roast “meat”. With mash and roasties and carrots and broccoli and puffy Yorkshire Puddings slathered in thick gravy. All for around €8.
I didn’t know what to get Queenie for her birthday. She seems a woman who has everything. And now she even has a hairpiece. She has never once been to the Loughside Cafe though. I think we will bring her here for a late birthday present, so she can have Sunday dinner put down in front of her and we can talk about the important issues of the day. Like if watching the repeat of Winning Streak takes the buzz away from the spin of the wheel or if it’s morally right that an animal won Britain’s Got Talent.
I might tell her, in case she doesn’t know, that for all my teasing of her hilarious ways she is one of the most generous and genuinely caring people I know. As Mr Cowell might put it I am one hundred million per cent sure she won’t mind me saying that.
In other news . . . In other news . . . if you were one of the thousands who queued for a hug from Indian woman Amma during one of her visits here or even if you just like the idea of prolonged hugs from cuddly strangers then an upcoming concert in Liberty Hall, Dublin, featuring Chloe Goodchild and the Naked Voice Choir may be of interest on Friday. Funds raised go to Amma Ireland. Tickets €20, tel: 0818-205205.