Go a-head, Gary, get it cut!

HE did it! After 12 months of neither shaving nor cutting his hair, Hungerford hero Gary Waterman is happy to be bald as a billiard ball again.

He raised an amazing £5,802 in donations for cancer research in the process and threw one hair-raising party for friends and fundraisers.

But among the festivities, Mr Waterman was reminded of his original goal by a touching letter from a Hungerford nine-year-old called Jess from Penny Farthing Close.

She wrote, enclosing £10 saved from her pocket money, of how her grandfather fell victim to cancer, adding: “He was everything to me.

“And this money is what I’ve been saving for ages.

“I’m giving you this to say a big ‘thank you’ because then I know someone is trying to help – and to say a humungous, big ‘good luck’.”

Mr Waterman said: “This sort of thing makes it all worthwhile.”

The former chrome dome vowed to stop cutting his hair and shaving for 12 months in aid of Cancer Research and kept a photographic record, posting regular snapshots of the results online.

The father of three and grandfather of one admitted he couldn't wait to shave it all off and to “stop looking like Tom Hanks in the film Castaway.”

His wife, Sue, was also looking forward to having her clean-shaven husband back.

Mr Waterman had easily smashed through his original £2,000 target and his challenge officially ended on Saturday night, September 3, at a grand charity night called The Big Shave at Hungerford Town Football Club.

He received a cut throat razor shave and haircut from the Gentlemans Barber Shop and the evening was rounded off with a raffle and live music.