Wellingborough hairdresser who lost his sight now styles stars

At Moorfields Eye Hospital in London, Savani was told he needed immediate surgery.

A corneal transplant led to improvements, but he was still left partially sighted and resigned his NHS job on medical grounds.

“It was like everything I’ve worked for had been taken away from me.

“During that time I’ve also lost my father, who’s the head of the family – I couldn’t work out how to fill that role.

“I went down a dark spiral and started cutting myself away from family, friends. My mental health suffered.”

After going through a breakdown in his marriage, Savani spent nearly two months in a secure mental health unit near Northampton.

“When I came out, I’d lost everything – the divorce, my home, my career, my savings.

“I had no choice but to go into government housing. The apartment was literally concrete floors and I had just enough money to get a sofa bed,” he recalls.

Wondering how to rebuild his life, an anonymous gift from a Good Samaritan dramatically changed his sense of purpose.

“I got a message from London School of Barbering saying I had enrolled on a course.

“I rang up and said ‘I think you’ve sent this to the wrong person’ and that I didn’t have a hundred pounds to my name, let alone four grand for a course.

“But they said ‘No, Mr. Savani, this has been paid for you, your trains have been paid for as well’.”

His initial reaction was, “I’m a corporate, I’m not going back to cutting hair,” but he decided to go to London and find out who had made the donation.

It had come via a finance company and Savani has never worked out who the mystery donor was.

“It’s got to be someone from my past, because they knew I cut hair and not a lot of people knew that.”