HER hair is growing again, but she still feels the cold, especially around her ears. Canon Barbara Holbrook had her head shaved immediately after her installation as an Honorary Canon in Southwell Minster. "I realise this is a stupid thing to do," she said when she had committed herself, "but it's too late to back out now". Her motive was to show solidarity with members of her congregation at St Patrick's, Nuthall, who have been diagnosed with cancer in recent years, and have lost their hair during treatment. It was also to raise money for Maggie's Centre, which provides support for cancer patients and their families at the City Hospital, in Nottingham.

"We have had a number of our congregation affected by cancer over the past couple of years," she said, a couple of days before she faced the razor. "I took the funeral yesterday of one prominent member, who died aged 54. Our organist at Kimberley, also in her fifties, is undergoing treatment for breast cancer, and currently has no hair.

"We have had one other cancer death, and two or three who have received treatment. As an act of solidarity and support, I am planning to have my head shaved."

So the deed was done immediately after she and the Revd Steve Silvester were both made Honorary Canons at a service where three Lay Canons were also installed.

Canon Holbrook tells me that she does not normally wear a hat, but she did have a black woolly hat, with a poppy, for the outdoor service on Remembrance Sunday, and she keeps a wig for funerals, so as not to distract mourners. But, at the eight primary schools in her parish where she has talked about having her head shaved, and why she did it, the children have been unfazed, and several remarked that "My dad's got no hair." The oddest thing, she finds, is how many people feel compelled to stroke her head and remark on how it feels.