Illianna locks set to help sick princesses

Until this weekend, Illianna Tok had barely ever had her hair cut.

The five-year-old's tresses reached almost down to her knees, and apart from the occasional few millimetres from the ends, had never been trimmed.

But the warm-hearted youngster decided that it was time for a change and had it cut short - to be turned into wigs for sick children.

Illianna is donating her hair to the Little Princess Trust, which specialises in producing tailor-made wigs for girls suffering from alopecia, or those who have lost their hair to chemotherapy.

Her mum, Jane Watson, 48, said: "She's always wanted to keep it long, and I've got two other daughters and they didn't really get it cut until they were 16, but I didn't know about the charity option then.

"It's so long you have to do the washing and the blow drying, and it takes about two hours for the poor thing, and for the past few months she's been saying, 'It's very long, can I do something with it?' "

Illianna's sister, Natasha Dastkhordi, 24, said: "It was Illianna's idea, I don't know how she came up with it. There are children at her nursery with different disabilities, there's a child with a wheelchair and someone who was unwell, so maybe they'd talked about different illnesses there.

"She just came home one day and said to my mum that she wanted to cut her hair and donate it to make wigs, so I looked up online to see what we could do with it. I've got really long hair myself and I don't think I'd be brave enough to do that in case I regretted it."

The Trust asks that hair donations should be at least ten inches long, but Illianna's are more than twice that length. She has also been getting sponsorship for submitting herself to the hairdresser's scissors, so she can send money to the charity to help them meet the cost of making wigs.

Gayle Erskine, of the Julie Maxwell salon in Lanark Road, who gave Illianna the cut, said: "It's a surprise from her mum, because she likes the kids to have long hair."

To sponsor Illianna, go to www.justgiving.com/illianna. For more information on the Princess Trust, see www.littleprincesses.org.uk.