Acknowledgements

First and foremost, my sincere thanks to the late Mrs Valerie Fleeman, who gave me invaluable information regarding her father’s hairdressing business in Bold Street. She had a remarkable memory and filled in all the gaps in my knowledge of the area in the forties and fifties, including shops, cafés and hotels. Valerie’s father, Mr Mann, could truly boast of being ‘Hairdresser to the stars’ and was a wonderful character to put in to the book, playing a major role, as you will see, if you read on!

I should also like to thank Mr Geoffrey C. Seys-Llewellyn, BSc., FBOA, for the very useful information regarding albinos – I had to rewrite a chunk of my story after consulting Mr Seys-Llewellyn, but it’s always worth it to get it right.