Nature Boy

John Humphrys, a one-time unofficial ambassador for The Soil Association, volunteered to the Today audience on Saturday that he stopped using shampoo around 2003. He made himself available to the Mail on Sunday (has he ever written for them ?) to explain further.

‘I stopped using shampoo about 15 years ago when someone with a lustrous head of hair told me he’d given up. It’s true that the first couple of weeks are pretty horrible – more grease than a chip shop fryer – but then the good bugs go to work and the grease gradually vanishes.

‘The fact is shampoo strips your hair of its natural oils – and there are some pretty nasty chemicals in some brands that do positive harm.'

This week 15 years ago, John Humphrys was presenting Today with regular Sarah Montague (Lord knows what the pay differential was then), and summer stand-ins Martha Kearney and Stephen Sackur. The Editor was Kevin Marsh.   2003 was the Year of the Humphrys Strop over an interview with the Archbishop of Canterbury.  In the same year, new rules introduced under Greg Dyke meant John had to give up a lucrative Sunday Times column. Now he writes for YouGov and irregularly for the Mail.