Long time Sunshine Appeal supporter, Martin Riddell, describes his novel and impromptu fund raiser in Slovenia which raised £130 for the appeal:
Outside Coyle’s do on the Saturday night in Ljubljana I was talking to Stewart Mckinlay and he commented on how long my hair was and when I’d last had it cut. I said that it must’ve been approaching a year since I was last scalped to which he replied that I could do with a haircut. I don’t know who made him the king of hirsuteness given his baldy dome but I said “aye you’re probably right, you can cut it tomorrow if you want to give a wee donation to TASA.”He agreed and we made arrangements to meet at Triple Bridge at 2pm. The only condition was that Stewart had to supply the scissors.I was having lunch with friends on the Sunday at Restaurant Aroma, just along from our agreed meeting point when Stewart turned up holding a linen napkin. He unfolded it to reveal a serious pair of scissors. When I asked him how he’d got a hold of them he said he’d walked into a bar and the conversation went like this:“Excuse me, this is going to sound like a silly question but do you have a pair of scissors I can please borrow? ““Why?”“You really don’t want to know but I promise to bring them back.”“Sure. There you go.”I’m not sure Stewart really believed I was going to let him lose on my hair with scissors but I sat on the bar stool with my glass of red and said “on you go”.He was a bit cautious at first but soon got into the swing of things, asking if I was going any holidays, how the kids were etc. Usual hairdresser chat.We began to attract a bit of a crowd and Goldie from Bonnyrigg asked for a shot so the same rules applied – he needed to donate to TASA. He did, and then Andy Cook saw an opportunity and grabbed the bread basket from our lunch table and collected a fair amount of cash from our onlookers.A great result on the hair front, a good bit of entertainment for passers by and I only needed a little bit of tidying up when I got back to Edinburgh. Oh, and Stewart kept him promise to the bar owner. I just hope the owner washed the scissors before he used them again.