Contrary to what we redheads have been led to believe, we are not disappearing. Our numbers have increased in the past 10,000 years, according to a recent Harvard study. What’s more, researchers found, being ginger may actually be desirable as far as natural selection is concerned because ‘having red hair was beneficial 4,000 years ago’. The reason why has yet to be discovered. But it’s good news for the class bully, producers of sunscreen and those – like me – who’ve had a love-hate relationship with the variants in their MC1R gene which leads to red hair and pale skin.

I was an extreme redhead as a child; not one of the beautiful ones with long, auburn curls and green eyes. No, with my large head, fluorescent carroty hair, enormous blue eyes, pale eyelashes, freckles and gappy teeth, I was the ugly ginger kid that provoked whispers of: ‘That’s a wee shame…’ By the time I moved from the safety of the village primary to a rough secondary school, I was even odder looking: stick thin and a bit underdeveloped. Once, when the history........

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