WHILST on holiday with my parents over Christmas, my mum and I headed off for our usual haircut together.

The man who administers the latter is a very old friend, someone who has cut my mother's hair for decades and who, when she was ill at home and unable to go anywhere, turned up at our front door with his scissors. 

Gently manoeuvring her into a chair in our kitchen, he restored some of her sparkle with kind words and the magic of his snipping and shaping, an act of generosity which I have never forgotten.

As they are such good chums, he has always encouraged her to experiment with her coiffure. Quite a number of years ago, he suggested adding pink streaks throughout her, by now almost completely grey, hair.

Mum being someone unlikely to hide her light under a bushel at the best of times, she went for it - and we have had many years since of this 'do, which is, undeniably, a talking point.

Lots of people have admired it, especially women of mum's own age, and it is a striking look - just a little different.

Thus, it has also caused her some upset, unfortunately because quite a number of people do not seem to be able from being cruelly 'pass-remarkable', as we'd say in Northern Ireland, about other people's appearances.

A woman in London once pointed and laughed in Mum's face as we walked past the open-air cafe where the former was sitting, and, over the recent holidays, a group of teenage boys jeered audibly about it as we left a swimming pool. I was felt as if I would explode in response to their lack of respect. 

Of course we all talk about others, that is just part of the fabric of life and community, but such point-blank rudeness, or intolerance, is hard to comprehend.

As I counselled Mum, reminding her that anything which is not the bland or the beige or the norm often attracts hostility, I was also reminding myself that an embrace of the rainbow of life, its rich tapestry,  goes a long way.

I also recalled that, once upon a time, I had a pierced eyebrow and purple hair. Occasionally, I would sense that a person had taken one look at me and thought that they had it all worked out about who I was and what kind of way I was going to behave.

Wouldn't they have been surprised to find out that, throughout all of the time when I looked most 'alternative', I was a swot of a student who also rarely missed attending church.

As I need to remind myself more often, appearances really can be deceptive.