Most hairdressing tutors will teach young hopefuls how to cut the latest trends, but how many can say: “I wrote the textbook.”
Keryl Titmus, curriculum manager and instructor at the Central Hairdressing Academy in Southend, is the author of the standard student textbook for the trade, used across the UK, and, increasingly, the world.
The book was the first to be commissioned by the City & Guilds organisation, the UK’s leading organisation for practical workplace qualifications, cover-ing everything from plumbing to crane handling.
Other textbooks for other workplace qualifications have followed.
But as Martin Kolton, Central Hairdressing Academy founder, and Keryl’s boss, puts it: “It was Keryl who set the template.”
The Southend academy, in London Road, is the largest training centre for the hairdressing industry in the UK. 
Keryl says: “We’ve always worked closely with City and Guilds, so they already knew me and the way I worked, when they approached me about writing the manual.
“I produced a sample chapter, and we were away.”
The book is a glossy, lavishly illustrated and very user friendly volume, designed to look attractive and to be an easy read.
“If you get it right, students will use it,” says Keryl.
“It shows “there is still a place for textbooks, even for a generation which has been brought up with computers.”
Writing the first manual was an arduous job for Keryl.
“I had to learn how to put it all together, as well as doing the writing and research,” she says.
“There wasn’t much I could use as a model.”
Now, Keryl is something of an old hand.
“She has just completed the third edition of the manual, which is constantly updated to take account of new demands, such as environmental practices, and even the use of Freetrade tea and coffee in salons.
“It’s still a lot of work,” she says. “But I have a strong sense of possessiveness about the book now. I wouldn’t dream of letting another author tackle it. I’m too proud of it. I hold it in my hand and can say, I did that.”
Behind the information contained in the book is a wealth of experience in teaching young people to become hairdressers.
Keryl was always single-minded about her career. She left school, Eastwood High, at 16, and went straight into hairdressing.
“It was always my plan to start my own salon,” she says. But when a health issue impeded her ability to practice hands-on hairdressing, she switched to training.
“I’ve got great satisfaction from passing on my passion to students instead,” she says.