Hair-razing for charity as John shaves off afro

A schoolboy whose afro hairstyle grew so big he required hospital treatment for head pain has shaved it off in aid of charity.

John Sterlin Browne, 14, a pupil at Tynecastle High School, had his head shorn in the school gym hall at lunchtime to the cheers of hundreds of fellow pupils.

The Ghanaian-born teenager had been cultivating his afro for the past three years and his mum styled it fortnightly in fashionable corn rows. But combing his hair was so agonising that it regularly took his mum more than two hours whilst John bit on a piece of wood to cope with the pain.

A newly shorn John said: "It felt like a big weight had been lifted off my head. It was pretty wide - about 20 centimetres on each side. It was sore when I was getting it combed. There'll be less pain now on my scalp."