One of my first religious experiences, aside from being Christened, which I don’t remember, was joining the church youth club when I was about 12 years old. This was because my (very posh and very bookish) friend Rosamund went, and I wanted to go too. Unfortunately, it necessitated going to church.
It was Church of England and as these things go, it wasn’t too fire and brimstone. The vicar was dull but not intimidating. His services were long, but it meant that we could hang out in the soulless church hall on a Friday evening and play ping pong, swap cassettes, buy penny sweets and develop crushes on the boy – I seem to remember there was only one worthy of our attention. There really wasn’t anything else to do where I lived, other than hang in bus shelters and I wasn’t allowed to do that.
So, I reluctantly learnt about God. My parents, now divorced, didn’t go to church apart from the odd carol service. I stuck with it and played a lot of ping pong and chatted to our little group about Duran Duran.
After a few months of these regular meet ups, a youth trip was arranged to go and see the evangelical preacher Billy Graham at Anfield, Liverpool Football Club’s stadium. I knew very little about Billy Graham other than the fact he was American. I knew more about Anfield as my dad was a Liverpool fan and would point himself out on tv if he ever went to the match and got caught on camera jumping up behind the goal.
My Dad often talked about rivals Manchester United and how George Best was a left footer. As a child I associated being left-handed with being Catholic, I thought somehow, they were intrinsically linked. As an aside I ended up marrying a left-handed, Catholic, Manchester United fan.
It was a hot July day, and I wore a cotton dress and sandals. We sat on the coach chatting, with the sun streaming through the glass windows, which we stared out of aimlessly, when we ran out of things to say. Then, after what felt like an eternity, we pulled up somewhere on the back streets of Liverpool - a city that was very familiar as half my family lived there.
Militant Liverpool
This was 1984 and Liverpool was on edge. The Toxteth riots had blazed through the streets leaving debris, broken windows, slashed tyres, rage and despondency and an even greater disrespect for the police and those in authority. Militant Derek Hatton had recently been elected as Deputy Leader of Liverpool Council. Liverpool felt disconnected to the rest of the country. It was an independent state. My grandparents who lived on the main artery of Queen’s Drive in Liverpool had fallen out (which was unheard of) over politics. My grandfather had dared to vote for the SDP.
We climbed down off the coach and made our way through the lines of dark red brick terraces which were as jaded as the people that lived in them. There were thousands of people congregating in this unlikely place of worship. Coach after coach pulled up and the steady flow of the devoted made their way in search of answers and enlightenment.
We sat in the stadium and Billy Graham appeared to applause. He was a square looking man. He reminded me of a 1960s American politician. He preached, preached, and preached some more. The sea of faces around the stadium becoming shiny and sweaty. Then in a very memorable moment as the rhetoric peaked and you could almost see the spit projecting out of his mouth, he invited people to get up and join him. To come and be saved by God.
I wasn’t prepared for this. It was a step too far for me and I started to question whether my commitment to youth club had led me down the wrong path. What was I to do? People in their hoards peeled their hot, sticky behinds off the plastic seats in the terraces and made their way on to the pitch.
I didn’t want saving. In a fight or flight moment of panic I made my way down the steps and out of the stadium and ran. My flat sandals hitting the shiny tarmac. I got past the stadium and down the street and then in an act of God the elastic on my knickers seemed to disappear and I could feel my pants falling down my legs.
I stopped running and turned a corner, let my knickers fall to my ankles and whipped them over my sandals and stuffed them in my bag. Turned back round the corner and I carried on running back to the coach.
I’m talking for free, I can’t stop myself it’s a new religion
I moved house and moved school and that was pretty much the end of the church youth club. I spent most evenings listening to Janice Long and John Peel on a small Bush radio that my dad gave me. I loved the Smiths. I was particularly smitten with Johnny Marr’s look, the polka dot blouse, beads, and a sort of 1960s black mop of hair with a nod to the beehive - kitchen sink glamour. I also loved the Jesus and Mary Chain – the feedback over Phil Spector-esque songs and more backcombing - a new religion.
I don’t know how we could have done it without hairspray
I’d had long mousey brown hair forever and this was the beginning of an ongoing experiment. Alongside my love of radio, the BBC was reshowing the series Ready Steady Go, and I became simultaneously obsessed with the 1960s.
I don’t remember exactly when the backcombing started, and I don’t think it was inspired by the obvious look of the goths such as Siouxsie – but more likely Dusty Springfield. I had a little bamboo comb with tiny teeth that meant that I could get a thick and high tease. It took time to do this all over my head, section by section, but the payoff was big.
I tried many times to achieve a beehive. With all the mess underneath and a smooth piece of hair sculpted over the top. I bought old fashioned setting lotion and doused myself in that, but however hard I tried - my hair was very much a 1980s incarnation.
Margaret Vinci Heldt created the beehive. The Chicago based stylist wanted to design a hairstyle that would fit under a pillbox hat which was fashionable at the time, popularised by the likes of Jackie Kennedy.
In 1960, Margaret modelled and practised on her mannequin at the request of Modern Beauty Shop Magazine who wanted a new feature. It was apparently the magazine that coined the name Beehive after a hair pin belonging to Margaret that resembled a bee was placed on the mannequin’s coiffure.
The bouffant very quickly blew up with everyone from Audrey Hepburn to the Ronettes wearing variations of the ‘do. I love the fact the style was adopted by the counterculture and that the less polished version continued to become a trademark for the narcissistic Velma Von Tussle in John Water’s Hairspray and later on the iconic Amy Winehouse.
Incidentally, I really love the images taken by Karl Heinz Weinberger, a Swiss photographer who totally captured the youth culture of Halbestarke in the 50s and 60s many of whom had the perfect nonchalant version of the beehive.
My backcombing continued throughout my teens. Inspiration came from the peroxide Mike Monroe of Hanoi Rocks and the elegant David Sylvian from early Japan through to the plastic nihilism of Sigue Sigue Sputnik and the romance of Strawberry Switchblade which reminded me of 60s Eastern European cinema.
By the time I got to university the hair was tamer and styled more in line with the 60s look I had tried to create, but often compared by my friends to the character Peggy Bundy in Married with Children, which wasn’t the look that I was going for.
I studied Religion at university, so I was back on speaking terms with God, in all his forms. But there was no going to church and no youth clubs just wild stories from my Buddhism teacher about her trips to India in the 1960s on the Silk Road. I wonder what her hair was like?
Love this!!! We all need a Peggy Bundy do too! ❤️
Absolutely great article! I love both the writing and the beehive. 💚