his honest and troubled memoir belongs to a genre one may shorthand as I-was-Sinatra’s-valet: how an ordinary day jobber encountered a star and found life glitteringly transformed. Here it’s a 21-year-old hairdresser, Suzi Fussey, living at home with her parents in Bromley, south-east London, and working at a salon in neighbouring (“posher”) Beckenham. One day in 1970 a customer, Mrs Jones, mentions her “artistic” son, David, who plays in a band; the following week, she brings in David’s wife, Angie, who wants a haircut – “something outrageous”. Angie is so delighted with the result that Suzi is summoned
