BALDY

SOME confusion surrounds this picture, possibly taken in late 1983 after McPherson had booked into a private clinic for a hair transplant (he had started thinning on top when he just nine). When surgeons told him that the hair refused to take he asked them to try planting fir seeds under his scalp. Amazingly they took and within the year a two-foot sapling had appeared. "It beats wearing a T-shirt with the band's name on it," he boasted. Every Christmas he would decorate the tree before it was cruelly cut off by a fan during his sleep. Tragically it never grew back. Quite why the rest of the band are so gaily dressed remains a mystery. The band explained they were on the way to gate-crash a fancy-dress party but got the wrong night - obviously a joke since it was parties that gate-crashed the band. Indeed it's more likely the photograph was taken at some massive showbiz bash being held in Tombola's parents' front room.