I was sexually assaulted by my hairdresser at 13 and it wrecked my relationships with men for years to come: LUCY CAVENDISH

It all started when I was 13 years old. I had just enrolled at my new secondary school, a state grammar school about 20 minutes from my home in middle-class Buckinghamshire.

I was living with my parents, sister and two older brothers, and like most teenagers, I wanted to fit in.

I played netball. I rode ponies. I was a smart girl who tried not to be too smart because that wouldn’t make me popular. I didn’t think I was particularly beautiful, and I was surrounded by very beautiful, very skinny girls.

I wasn’t a confident teenager, but life was still good. Safe, happy, on track.

But everything changed that autumn.

My father left unexpectedly. One day he was at the family’s house, the next day he was gone.

It was devastating. I went from feeling safe and ‘normal’ to feeling lost and alone.

This was all compounded by the fact that our family essentially carried on as usual and didn’t actually tell anyone. This was the late 1970s and divorce was very stigmatized at the time.

Neither of my parents had been raised to talk about their feelings, and so this shocking change occurred in our home without much explanation or even acknowledgment. I couldn’t trust anyone, not even my closest friends.

I see now that this left me terribly vulnerable to a deeper blow to my childhood.

One day, when I went to the shopping mall in our neighborhood, I noticed a new hair salon.

I’ve never been to one before. My mother used to cut my hair in a not-so-flattering pudding-bowl style; I grew it out like this because I saw that other girls at my school didn’t have hair like this. Some painted their own.

One of them, who I thought was particularly beautiful and fashionable, told me that she was modeling for a hair salon in her town, and that sounded incredibly attractive.

When I saw this very modern salon that had just opened, I went in to ask what they could do for my hair.

A tall, dark-skinned man in his 30s came up to talk to me. He was slim-hipped, handsome, and his shirt was slightly unbuttoned. It smelled delicious.

He told me that his name was Ali and that he and his brother Shabs had been hairdressers in their hometown, Türkiye, for years. His brother was at the back of the room and waved at me.

Ali sat me on a chair and turned me around to face the mirror. She asked me what kind of style I wanted and spent quite a bit of time running her fingers through my hair and fluffing it.

‘You are a very beautiful girl,’ he said, ‘but your hair is terrible. Who’s doing this?’

I told my mother and she laughed.

I don’t know why—maybe because he was so warm and complimentary, maybe because he was so unlike anyone else in my female-dominated, buttoned-up world—but I told him that my father had left home, too. I remember him squeezing my shoulder.

It turned out that they were looking for volunteers to try new styles. ‘Why don’t you come and model for us?’ he asked.

I was so excited that I said yes immediately. I imagined myself going back to school and telling everyone that I was asked to be a model, just like the cool girls in my class.

That’s how it started.

One minute I had long, messy hair, the next I had a bouncy bob and honey highlights. “You look very beautiful,” said Ali.

The ugly duckling is gone. The person looking back at me in the mirror was sophisticated. soignee. I barely recognized myself. ‘I love him,’ I told him.

After that, going to the hairdresser became part of my routine. Sometimes I went once a week.

Ali never asked for a fee from me. He told me that since I was ‘modeling’ for the salon, I could do the haircut and styling for free; but none of the countless photographs he took with his Kodak camera were hung on the wall.

Over a period of a few months – as I began to trust him – I began to tell him everything about myself.

Even though I started making new friends at school, it was still the early days. My two brothers were busy doing sports at home and my mother was constantly taking them around. My sister had a boyfriend and they were very committed to each other.

Ali was careful. I told him that I missed my father and that I was lonely. He seemed to understand. Sometimes he would hug me or caress my hair. He once kissed the top of my head.

I was a smart girl who tried not to be too smart because that wouldn’t make me popular. I didn’t think I was very beautiful and I was surrounded by very beautiful, very skinny girls.

He was so kind that I thought he really cared about me; like a helpful uncle or even an elderly friend.

But about six months later, something changed. His attention moved from gentle to more demanding. When he thought no one was looking, he started kissing my neck. I felt confused and strange.

Once, while Ali was combing my hair and running his hands through it, I saw Shabs looking at him. He gave Ali a very dark look. I now suspect that Ali had done this kind of thing to other underage girls before and that his brother knew about it.

Then one day, Ali secretly told me that he had bought new hair products at his apartment in a nearby town. She suggested I drive with her so we could style my hair with these items and then do a photo shoot at her apartment.

Part of me knew that wasn’t why he invited me to his house. However, I was also afraid that if I said no, he would leave me as a model. The idea of ​​returning to a world where I was the ugly duckling again was unthinkable.

So I found myself in his two-seater sports car, driving to his private apartment. Even though it was decades ago, I remember it very clearly. It was done in 1970s decor (brown and orange) and looked very clean and tidy.

He poured me a drink (I didn’t see what he put in it) but I didn’t actually drink it. She then took out some clothes (mostly underwear) and suggested I change.

He was muttering, ‘You’ll look so beautiful, so beautiful’ and kept coming towards me. He hugged me and pulled me closer. He started putting his hands under my dress. I began to feel incredibly nervous, on the verge of panic. I told him I didn’t want to wear underwear. I was too young for this; It wasn’t true.

I remember pushing him and seeing the anger on his face.

‘We’re in my flat,’ he said. ‘There’s no one here.’

He started hugging me and tried to put his hands under my clothes again. I could feel his hands moving towards places I didn’t want him to touch. While he was caressing me, I stood there like a piece of wood and started crying. I cried because I wanted to leave. I told him I’ve never done anything with anyone before. I was 13 years old, a child. I hadn’t even kissed anyone. But he definitely couldn’t have that.

He tried to kiss me but I kept turning my head so his lips touched my cheek. They were wet and meaty. He was making terrible moaning sounds. It was terrible.

Then suddenly there was a knock on the door. Ali pushed me towards the toilet. “Stay there,” he hissed.

It turned out to be a plumber who came to look at all the apartments because someone said there was a leak. Ali told the man to come again tomorrow, but he did not go. He said he needed to see all the apartments and he was going to go in.

Ali told the plumber to give him a minute.

He came into the bathroom and hissed at me to get out and go down the fire escape at the back of the building.

I didn’t need any excuses. I ran out.

Five minutes later, Ali picked me up as I was leaving the parking lot. He didn’t talk to me.

He was angry and had white lips. No more loving conversations, no more rubbing my shoulders. Suddenly he saw a car coming towards us. He pressed my head towards his crotch. ‘This is my wife,’ he said. ‘Keep your head down.’

Spouse? I didn’t know he was married. He hadn’t said anything and I assumed he was single. Of course I had done nothing, I was actually his victim, but the shame I felt at that moment was overwhelming.

When we got back to the living room, I was in such a distressed state that I got out of the car and ran home.

I woke up the next day and felt terrible. I had feverish nightmares about being locked in a dark place underground.

In rational moments I told myself I had gotten a lucky escape, but inside I felt terribly dirty and guilty. I constantly questioned myself. Had I manipulated him? Was it my fault?

I withdrew from life because I had very few friends at school. I avoided going near the lounge. If I saw his car I would freeze.

But inexplicably, I also missed him and the care and attention he gave me. It was an overwhelming cocktail of conflicting emotions.

Finally, after six months of long evenings in my bedroom, my oldest brother, then 17, sat me down and asked me what was wrong. The relief was palpable. Everything came falling apart.

‘You should go to the police,’ he said. Looking back, his belief in me and his deep anger on my behalf were one of the clearest expressions of love I have ever witnessed.

But this was the 1970s. It seemed absurd to go to the police without being physically injured. There was little public awareness of predatory pedophiles or grooming. These were often swept under the rug or even laughed at.

However, this incident left a deep mark on him. I developed an eating disorder after what we today describe without hesitation as sexual assault on a minor.

I wanted to retreat from adolescence and hide again in the relative safety of childhood. Starving myself flattened any hint of curve. The thought of a man looking at my body with desire made me shudder with disgust and fear.

Today I am 59 years old, and it makes me very sad and angry to know that, as a 13-year-old child, I feel responsible for the actions of a grown man.

In fact, I had a hard time forming healthy relationships with men for most of my 20s and beyond. This didn’t mean I wasn’t having sex — I said yes many times when I wanted to say no — but instead it meant that I felt wary and distrustful of men’s motives.

On the one hand, I really wanted to be loved, and that’s why I got into relationships with men I wasn’t supposed to be with. But on the other hand, if I met someone who seemed genuinely lovely and caring, I would freeze, refusing to believe that he or she wasn’t being hypocritical.

When I was 24, I entered a two-year abusive relationship with a man simply because I didn’t know how to say no.

It took me forty years, two long-term relationships and one marriage, to truly learn to stand on my own two feet. And only now, after ten years of therapy, including my own training as a therapist and coach, have I finally been able to trace much of my behavior back to this ‘relationship’ with Ali.

Such experiences shape us forever. These things can happen to anyone, and they undoubtedly have happened to many women and girls. But when you think no one will believe you and instead dismiss your distress as an innocent slap and tickle, you stay silent.

If I could tell my family that I was being taken into care by a man nearly 20 years older than me, or talk to my friends, let alone the police, maybe my life would be very different.

All I knew was that my relationship with that hairdresser at such a tender age made me see the world as a slippery place. From that moment on, I could not trust where I walked or the men I met.

Society has changed and we no longer tolerate this type of behavior. But it still happens in the shadows, in places we can’t see.

Part of the solution is to shine a brighter light on it. Develop the kind of relationship with your child that makes them feel like they can talk to you about anything. Don’t let them sit alone in the dark like me.

Some names have been changed