A balding bloke whose hair loss left him 'looking like Dracula' splashed out £5,000 on a transplant so he could style his locks like David Beckham.
Jamie Robinson, an aerospace engineer, was desperate to emulate the sports star by mixing up his own hairstyles.
But the then 27-year-old, who was suffering from a severely receding hairline and thinning hair, resigned himself to combing his hair forward while batting off 'banter' from work colleagues.
Months passed and his self confidence wore away. Jamie eventually got in touch with hair transplant clinic Juvida after reading they had also helped Britain's Got Talent winner George Sampson.
He underwent an eight-hour procedure at their clinic in Skipton, North Yorkshire where individual follicles were taken from the back of his head and inserted into sparse areas of his scalp by hand.
Just 12 months after having the procedure in August 2018, Jamie was able to proudly style his locks in a variety of ways, sending his confidence 'through the roof' - and he also bagged himself a girlfriend.
Jamie, from Burnley, Lancashire, said: "David Beckham was the number one guy I wanted to emulate.
"He changes his hair every six months and looks fantastic with all of them."
Jamie was frustrated with his own hair as the options to style it in different ways had been 'taken off' him.
He added: "If I slicked my hair back then I looked like Dracula."
Jamie's hair loss crept up on him in his late 20s, but he said he became aware of it when work colleagues made 'jokes' about it.
Jamie said: "My hair was starting to thin as I was starting to get older, but to be honest it wasn't something I paid a lot of attention to.
"When I was working in a factory setting, the little jabs started coming from the lads.
"They said things like 'how old are you now? One strong gust of wind and that'll be gone' and all that sort of stuff.
"Obviously with fellas it's just seen as banter but stuff like that starts to make you think 'is there something wrong here'?
"Looking back at older pictures I did think 'my god it has gone back and the condition is nowhere near good enough'.
"It mainly affected me in the sense that I was limited to what hairstyles I could do.
"It affected my confidence as I didn't have the freedom to style it as I wanted and was limited to just one hairstyle - a short back and sides with my hair combed forward.
"I'd see people on telly where they'd have quiffs and long hair and slick backs and I was getting frustrated with that."
With no desire to go abroad for a treatment, Jamie believed he would just have to make do with his thinning locks.
But after spotting George Sampson chatting about his hair transplant on This Morning, Jamie rang to make an appointment in April 2018.
Jamie said: "I'd never risk a surgery abroad because there would be no aftercare so I just dismissed the idea.
"But one morning I was having breakfast watching telly and George Sampson was on This Morning discussing a hair transplant he'd had at Juvida.
"He showed before and after pictures and after seeing that I did a bit of research and discovered it was only a 40-minute drive away from me.
"The concept of a hair transplant clinic being so close had never crossed my mind.
"When I thought of hair transplants in England I thought of Wayne Rooney spending £30,000 in Harley Street but this was a 40-minute drive away in Skipton and cost £5,495."
After discussing it at length with specialists at the clinic, Jamie booked in to have the follicular unit extraction (FUE) procedure in August 2018.
Just 12 months after having it done, Jamie was able to proudly style his now luscious locks into a variety of celeb-inspired dos.
The 31-year-old said: "I was in there nearly eight hours but I was really excited about the results.
"I was impatient at first as anyone would be, then it was just a waiting game. It was a thrill watching it grow.
"It starts to grow then falls out. By month three it looks like nothing had even happened but then it starts to grow back.
"The density comes between months nine and 12 and seeing those results and getting to go to my barber - my confidence just went through the roof."
It wasn't just Jamie who was thrilled with the results, colleagues who'd previously teased him and advised him to 'go bald gracefully' were soon eating their words.
Jamie said: "I worked with a lot of 40 and 50-year-olds who had the attitude of 'just go bald gracefully'.
"We're in an era now where men don't want to go bald.
"Some people look great bald and that's fantastic but I look like a bag of potatoes with a bald head when it's shaved.
"At first I had a load of grief from people at work but I thought 'I can either run from it and try and keep it secret or I can tackle it head on'."
Jamie gave Juvida permission to use his photos - but someone he knew got hold of them and shared them on Facebook, 'trying to take the mickey.'
The 31-year-old decided to tackle the issue directly, adding: "I posted a status saying 'we're in an era where women can transform everything - lips, boobs and bum - and no-one bats an eyelid. Why is there a stigma with men?'
"Because I tackled it head-on I took away the power of anyone trying to give me grief.
"After that and a year later those comments soon were 'wow best decision you ever made, it looks amazing'. It came full circle."
Despite never being shy when it came to chatting up women, Jamie admitted that his new do gave him more confidence when mingling with the opposite sex.
Jamie said: "Having this done gave me more confidence when I was seeing people.
"It's amazing the difference a couple of inches of hair can make to a face.
"It makes you look younger and when you can style your hair it's part of a grooming process that makes you feel a lot more confident."
Jamie was so thrilled with the results that he quit his job two years ago and started working with the clinic as a patient consultant to help other men get luscious locks.
He said: "I was so open with Juvida letting them use my pictures that I had loads of people contacting me on Instagram and Facebook.
"These were people who wouldn't talk about it openly but would happily jump into my DMs to ask questions.
"I kept in touch with Juvida and was told 'you're basically doing the job anyway, how do you fancy coming and working for us?' I left my engineering job in 2020 and became a patient consultant.
"What I love most about my job is seeing men whose confidence has gone and seeing them take the plunge and seeing their transformation over the course of a year, it's the greatest feeling ever.
"The procedure has been life-changing for me, I look younger, I feel younger and my confidence has gone through the roof.
"I've also become friends with the people who did the treatment and now become colleagues with them.
"It's given me a new career path and I have a more fulfilled life because I get to help hundreds of men."
