A week ago I was visiting relatives in Manchester, and they very kindly took me on a day trip to Liverpool. The last time I had been there was fifty years ago, when I was a sulky teenager on a family car trip to Blackpool.
It was one of our last holidays all together, and we were at that awkward age when we felt far too grown up to still be travelling with our parents. I remember deliberately walking a good distance behind them, as though that might somehow disguise the fact that I belonged to them. Then I noticed that even further back, my two older brothers were doing exactly the same—each of us pretending we were not with the others at all.
Now, having lost both my parents, the memory makes me wince. I could almost cry at the selfishness of it. At that age I truly believed myself to be the centre of the universe, and the constant battle with facial spots felt like a tragedy beyond endurance. As someone once put it so well: “Youth is wasted on the young—because they are too busy thinking of themselves to notice it.”
Returning now as a pensioner, I found Liverpool vibrant, energetic, and full of life. The crowded streets, the noise, the sheer abundance of things to see and absorb—it was all quietly exhilarating.
One thing, in particular, caught my eye: the curious and wonderfully unapologetic habit of women wearing large hair rollers in public. From restaurants to buses, from shops to the airport—you could see them everywhere. I had no idea this was even a thing.
What struck me most was the confidence of it. In many places, people—especially women—feel an unspoken pressure to appear “finished” before stepping outside. Here, that expectation seemed to be gently mocked. The rollers were worn openly, almost cheerfully, as part of the process rather than something to be hidden.
I later learned that this is part practicality, part tradition, and part identity. The rollers are setting the hair in readiness for the evening ahead producing a big hair look for a night out—while they tackle daily tasks as usual. But more than that, it feels like a small, defiant celebration of self: a distinctly local style, worn with humour and pride.
And perhaps that was what I enjoyed most—the sense of ease in it. A kind of confidence that I suspect my younger self, so busy worrying about appearances, would never have understood.
