21 May 2012

In Memoriam: one of the good guys is no more

CST had this on their website: it's a brief obituary of Vidal Sassoon. I posted the following comment on another site, when it was suggested that he was a veteran of world War 2:

Umm, Francis, he was too young for WW2, in that he was sub 18 when the war ended – even The Grauniad got that bit right. However, he did join up with the 43 Group to fight fascists on the streets of London, while a hair-dressing apprentice. There’s one lovely story from this time: he arrived at work badly bruised one morning, and when the boss asked him how he got the bruises, he reportedly said he’d tripped over a hair-band.

He did go to what was then Palestine and fought in the War of Independence in the Hagana.

He may not have been religious, but was surely very Jewish and very anti-fascist.
The CST item is well worth a read.

By Brian Goldfarb.

1 comments:

Shaun Downey (Jams O Donnell) said...

Most definitely one of the good guys and far more than a talented hair stylist.