Furore over Kate’s hair highlights a horrific lack of empathy - Christa Ackroyd

It is the oh so clever, supposedly witty, amalgamation of the words blonde and brunette.

And of course the first time I read it you probably did too. It was the term used to describe the colour of the Princess of Wales’s new hairdo. If only it had stopped there.

Every news outlet in the world from Vogue to CNN carried news (which of course it is not) of the Princess’s new locks on what was her first public outing since the summer break with her husband to the Natural History Museum.

I had seen her in the summer at the Royal Garden party where she spent hours upon hours talking to hundreds upon hundreds of people, chatting and smiling and quite frankly looking amazing. Considering.

And I said so in this column. And left it there.

Not this time. Social media lit up. The comments on every single piece in every single newspaper ran into their thousands.

A national obsession was born. But it was horrific. One columnist behind a pay wall declared she would be the first say what everyone was thinking. I didn’t pay.

I knew what she would be saying. Everyone was saying it loud and clear. Is it a wig? Is it a hairpiece ? Are they hair extensions. Does it suit her?

Do you prefer her hair up or down, lighter or darker when of course the conversation should have been isn’t it absolutely amazing after the horror of a cancer diagnosis and gruelling treatment this young woman with young children feels well enough to re enter the public arena. Or rather the lion’s den.

I care not what or who has led to Katherine’s new look. I don’t even have an opinion on whether I prefer her blonde or brunette.

I only care at the total lack of understanding and empathy that led thousands of people to debate whether they liked it or not.

Which just about sums up today’s attitude towards women often by other women. And it saddens me. I thought we were growing up a little and learning that there is more to each and every woman than the sum of her outward appearance.

No wonder Pamela Anderson has gone makeup free to make the point that she is first and foremost an actress not just a Baywatch pin up.

It is rather strange that this week I was sent a clip of Harry (Gration) and me on Look North interviewing Superman baddie Sarah Douglas.

It was a lovely interview about how having lived in Hollywood for almost 20 years she had come back to theatre playing Shakespeare at Kirkstall Abbey in Leeds. It was more than 20 years ago and yes I was struck by how blonde I was and certainly how thin, too thin in fact.

But what shone through and was commented on the most when I posted it online was the natural camaraderie of good friends working together not what Harry and I were wearing which means that we were doing our job, the content of the programme being more important than the outward fripperies of fashion.

It wasn’t always so. I used to get a lot of mail when I was on Calendar. And I mean real mail, you know the ones which you had to put in an envelope, stick a stamp on and trek down to the post box.

Which meant that even if someone didn’t like you, something you said or something you wore it actually cost them time and money to say so, so inevitably the letters were usually about more pertinent subjects.

Sometimes they were not, leading me to comment that Richard could always get away with wearing the most outrageous of jackets with mismatched ties and no one said a word.

But if someone didn’t like my earrings or considered a jacket didn’t suit (no day dresses and cleavages in that era for female news presenters ) there were occasions when the public let you know.

I got used to the comment you look so much better in real life or worse still it’s true what they say TV puts pounds on you, I usually answered by saying yes, but what did you think of the interview I did with the Prime Minister. Point made. But the Princess of Wales cannot.

So I will say it for her. There will have been times since her diagnosis she will have been forced to confront her own mortality.

There will have been times when to even get out of bed in a morning will have been an effort. Every time she looked at her children she will, in the early days, have wept with the knowledge that she might not be here to see them grow up.

Then she will no doubt have been advised that the treatment to ensure that she is will have debilitating side effects including tiredness, weight loss and yes hair loss.

So do you think she will care if people speculate on how she looks, whether she has gone blonde to cover up the grey or had a little help to thicken up her lustrous locks. Of course she will. She is only human.

So can we please concentrate on the positives and not the negatives and that includes not how she looks rather the miracle of her recovery.

And let’s face it there isn’t a woman among us who hasn’t made a fashion faux pas as evidenced when we look back in old photographs.

We can laugh at poodle perms and shoulder pads the size of a French general although even it still makes me smile me when a reader mentions them on old TV photos when in fact they were just my broad shoulders.

The only time my appearance caused me concern was a few fleeting months when the former and newly appointed Managing Director Bruce Gyngell suggested to my boss that he didn’t like the way I looked, presumably because I wasn’t blonde and a size ten.

I will be forever grateful to that same boss whose response was: ‘well she is staying. I employ her for her journalism not her appearance.’

Not content Gyngell who had already painted the men’s dressing rooms blue and the women’s pink decided to survey the public for their opinion.

It turns out they thought more of the quality of their news than their presenters looks. He actually apologised, said he was wrong and bought me a company car. So that worked out fine.

But I did wobble. I did diet. I did make subtle changes because I loved my job and hated it coming second best to how I looked rather than how I carried it out.

Well that was 30 years ago. And I thought we knew better now. It appears not. May I wish the Princess of Wales well in her recovery.

May I tell her she looks absolutely incredible and if she likes her hair that is all that matters.What matters more is that she continues to stay well, be there for her family and for herself.

And if that means trying a new look to shake off the past couple of years good for her.

Being alive is her main focus now. What’s more I am pretty sure that is how Katherine wakes up each morning rather than worrying if today is going to be a bad hair day.