David Essex Cuts Hair for Little Princess Trust Charity

When a 10-year-old girl named Brooke from Scunthorpe decided to get her long locks cut so she could donate her hair to children with hair loss and also raise money for charity she knew she would make more of an impact if she didn’t go for a chop at her local hairdresser’s, but enlisted the help of a famous celebrity instead.

Enter singer and former Eastenders star David Essex OBE, who got busy with the scissors and then posed for a couple of shots which Brooke’s mum, Rebecca McKenna, posted on Facebook.

Brooke pictured before the 'Big Chop'

Real-hair wigs for children

Brooke wanted to donate 12-inches of her hair to The Little Princess Trust, the treasured British charity that provides free, real-hair wigs to children who have lost their own during cancer treatment or to the autoimmune disorder Alopecia Areata, which manifests itself as sudden, patchy hair loss.

As well as sending her hair to The Little Princess Trust, Brooke raised £450 in donations - 300 per cent up on her original target of £150! - for Team Verrico, a charity that helps pay for second opinions and treatments for cancer patients. Brooke is still accepting donations via her Just Giving page.

While some cases of Alopecia Areata clear up on their own in around six months, other cases linger and worsen, which can be especially distressing for children.

Adults are able to visit a hair loss treatment centre for advice and specialist alopecia areata treatment, but children’s options are more limited and should always begin with a visit to their GP. When hair loss is extreme - such as the baldness caused by Alopecia Totalis or Alopecia Universalis, a well-made wig of the kind offered by The Little Princess Trust can be a godsend.

Well-supported by children and adults

The Little Princess Trust has donated more than 4,500 real-hair wigs to children since it launched a decade ago.

Thanks to celebrities such as Harry Styles and Jessie J donating their own hair and raising awareness for the charity, it has become well supported by children and adults alike. Countless people across the UK are keen to get involved not just with donations of hair, but with fundraising activities, too.

It’s not clear why David Essex was recruited to help Brooke cut her hair, although reading through the posts on Facebook it seems that he was once spotted cutting hair on the BBC. What’s certainly true is that the much-loved singer once sported one of the finest heads of hair in showbusiness, although at 69 he is understandably a little thinner on top these days.