Word In Your Ear
Word In Your Ear
Mark Ellen, David Hepworth and Alex Gold
Nick Heyward, Haircut 100 and life as a 15 year-old father
46 minutes Posted Nov 11, 2026 at 1:02 am.
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Show notes

Haircut 100’s moment in the sun was brief but dramatic and as vividly remembered as his childhood in Nick Heyward’s memoir Fantastic Days. The boy in marmalade corduroy shoes becomes the pop star in the sou’wester and, 45 years later, he’s finally made sense of the peaks and troughs along the way. He’s not bitter but has every right to be. It’s beautifully written, full of moments where time stands still, and this extraordinary and emotional conversation weaves its way through the following …


… early ‘60s life with an old-school father – “beer, pubs, jazz, meat”


… mid- ‘70s discos – “buck teeth, triple denim, imagining you’re Rick Parfitt” - and memories of Monster Mash, Tiger Feet, Monty Python, Stardust and That’ll Be The Day


… the look the bank girl gave him when he paid in his first royalty cheque


… the “hostile takeover” that expelled him from the band and has never been discussed since


… being a father aged 15 and eventually meeting his long-lost daughter


… is it a gift or a burden to have an over-active imagination?


… the band blowing their earnings in some kind of Simon Tamplar fantasy


… familiar tensions in the Beatles’ Get Back movie


… “for me it was leadership, for them resentment”.


Order copies of ‘Fantastic Days’ here: https://tr.ee/ITZXRHj-Ia

Book tour here: https://tr.ee/4r1Kj_oNVj

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