Nana’s hair-raising escapades

Nana 1952

Nana, Ivy, was my maternal grandmother.  Born in London in 1906, the first of four children to Ada (Adeline) and Henry, Nana came to Australia at the end of the First World War, after her father had been killed in action in France, and her mother later remarried, to an Australian soldier.

I spent a lot of time at Nana’s house as a kid.  At home, I remember Nana always wearing an apron, and either showing very thin hair with bald patches, or often with a cloche style of hat pulled down over her ears.  It never occurred to me to ask what the matter was with Nana’s hair – that was just the way she was. 

Much, much later I remember her telling me that she had developed ringworm as a child in London, which, untreated, caused her to develop nasty ring shaped patches on her head, and to lose some patches of hair.  She said that she wore a knitted beanie to school, and the other children could be quite cruel, snatching the beanie off her head and taunting her.  They were a poor family, and then I guess that people really didn’t know that ringworm was a fungal infection.

I think that it must have been in the 1960’s when Nana’s adult kids clubbed together one year to buy her a wig.  That was a big deal, as in those days it had to be a real hair wig, and cost a small fortune.  She looked lovely, and even then I thought that it made her look a lot younger.  So began Nana’s series of “hairy” adventures.

The first one I remember was when my cousin had joined the navy as a junior recruit.  A large family group went out to Essendon Airport (pre Tullamarine, it was then Melbourne’s major airport) to see him off.  Those were the days – little or no security, and everyone just walked out onto the tarmac and milled around until the plane took off.  In the midst of all the waving and crying, the jet turned around, and whoosh, off flew Nana’s wig.

Everyone started shrieking to the kids to “quick, catch Nana’s wig!” as it flew this way and that, like a strange little hairy animal having fun merrily bouncing around the tarmac.  I remember getting the giggles, and looking at adults crying, laughing, or trying not to laugh.  Having fits of the giggles makes it really hard to run, but eventually someone caught hold of the offending item, it was restored to Nana, and that was that.

As time went on, Nana would save up for a new wig, and the old one would be retired to be worn around the house, so the new one could be saved for “best”.  I’m pretty sure that it was Myers in Bourke Street that Nana went to, as she liked the “wig lady” there, who would show her into a private room where she could try wigs on without being gawped at in public.  Initially I remember Nana always had a brown wig, but later on, the “wig lady” persuaded her to “go grey”.  Amazingly she looked younger again once she changed her hair colour.  As synthetic wigs became available, and prices dropped, Nana had several wigs at a time; the oldest and scruffiest being worn when doing the housework. Some of them even had a blue or mauve tinge, and the better ones were worn according to the importance of the occasion.

There must have been plenty of public “wig mishaps” that I don’t actually remember, because it became a bit of a family joke to say to Nana before going out “Is your wig tied down, Mum?”

Nana didn’t seem to mind the joking too much, and I do remember her relating other tales of wig mishaps. 

She had moved in with Mum, Dad and I when I was still fairly young, and she became very active with the local Elderly Citizens’ Club.  One of the regular outings was a “mystery bus tour”, when they would take a picnic lunch and go to a nice park somewhere during a day out.  One day the oldies, with the help of the bus driver, were crossing a small stream on stepping stones.  The driver was holding his hand out to Nana, and when he suddenly turned to respond to someone else, Nana lost her footing and started to topple over.  The helpful driver saved her, but her wig kept going, landed in the drink and had to be retrieved.  Nana related gleefully that the look on the driver’s face was priceless, because it seemed that for a split second he thought that the old lady’s head had fallen off!  Poor man!

If she remembered, and it was windy outside, Nana sometimes did go out with a scarf tied over her head, to prevent any unexpected wig flying events.

Nana 1980's

Nana moved into her own unit, still in the same suburb, but close to the local shops.  The railway line ran through the middle of the shopping centre, with the level crossing and station close together.  The local taxis would often be queued up at the crossing, waiting for a suburban train to pass before they could get back to the taxi rank at the station.  Nana was well known to all the taxi drivers, as like most of the women of her generation, she had never learned to drive, and was a regular taxi user.  One day Nana, out shopping, was waiting at the crossing, when the sudden gust from a passing train sent her wig whirling up into the air, and then down again to land on a post.  It was a day when she had forgotten to tie the wig down with a scarf, so Nana was flustered, and more than a little annoyed that all the waiting taxi drivers were just sitting there, laughing.  So she grabbed her wig, shoved it back on her head, and kept going.

Soon she met a friend of hers, and stopped to chat, but after a while the friend said “I’m sorry dear, but is there something wrong with your hair?”  Unfortunately Nana, in her haste, had slapped the wig on back to front, oops.

Nana has been gone for a long time now, but still, whenever I go to the hairdresser, or see someone having a “bad hair day”, or come across any mention of wigs, I start to smile.  If I think of any of those “hair-raising adventures”, I might even laugh out loud, and I bet Nana would be laughing too.