When Sally Harrison reached her late thirties, she decided to give her career a restyle along the lines of Educating Rita. She laid down her scissors and comb, and closed the hair salon she had run with her husband since her twenties. A short while later she entered university with the sole purpose of training to become a teacher. “I never really wanted to be a hairdresser. I never enjoyed it,” she admits now, eight years after she walked away. “Touching hair isn’t very pleasant and you have to listen to people’s problems all day. And I certainly didn’t get any job satisfaction.”

Mrs Harrison, now second in the English department at the recently reopened and renamed Alder community high school, in Hattersley, Cheshire, fell into hairdressing. She was studying to be a nurse when she met her salon-owning husband. After they married, she trained to be a stylist so they could run the business together.

“I wasn’t determined to do anything except leave school, which I hated. I only went into nursing so I would have something convincing to tell my mother and she’d let me leave. She wanted me to have a professional career. I can’t stand the sight of blood, and my mother knew it. When I was accepted she said she had lost all faith in the health service.”

So Mrs Harrison found herself behind a salon chair during the day, listening to one-sided conversations from people she barely knew, and in the evening poring over VAT returns and wage slips. When she started a family, she reduced the amount of time she spent in the salon but still had to help run the business. After having eight children, she also had experience of managing large groups of kids. She was well aware that she had the ability and the skills to teach, something she’d always been interested in.

“When I went to the careers advice person at my school, she said I should teach or go into hairdressing.” Ironically, Mrs Harrison has ended up doing both.

But it was ill health that finally forced her to re-evaluate. First her husband fell ill and was out of the salon for six months, then, before his convalescence had ended, she was diagnosed with blood clots on her lungs. Both were lucky to survive. It also coincided with key employees leaving the salon. So they decided to throw in the towel and lay down their scissors for good.

They assessed their situation, deciding that Mrs Harrison, as the youngest of the two, should be the one to go to university - even though at the time she only had five GCEs. She did an access course, then went on to study English at MMU in Manchester.

“It was hard, especially having no money. We had nothing left over from the business, so we had to live off benefits,” she says. “It was a real struggle and at one point I considered retail management. I even got as far as the second interview, but I’d always wanted to be a teacher. At the last moment, I rejected it and applied for my PGCE.” That was three years ago when her youngest child was eight and her eldest 23.

Despite never enjoying hairdressing, Mrs Harrison is glad she had the experience. “Being a hairdresser draws you out of yourself,” she says. “I used to be shy, but you can’t be like that in the salon. You have to be able to talk to anyone about anything. Hairdressing is also performing. All good teachers are performers - you have to leave the staffroom and go out on to the stage every day. In hairdressing, you also have to be able to read your clients, understand their agenda. It’s the same with the kids.”

In a reverse of their earlier life, Mr Harrison has now joined his wife at Alder, helping out in the child support unit.