Shaven heads fuel ear surgery craze

Having large, protruding ears wasn't a problem in the days when men wore their hair long. Many a pair of bat ears, or "Lineker lugs" as they have come to be known, were hidden from view beneath shoulder-length locks.

But the fashion for shaved heads and ultra-short hair has changed all that, leaving protruding ears as exposed as a brace of handles on a pewter tankard.

So while the Prince of Wales, Andrew Marr, the BBC's political editor, and Charles Clarke, the Secretary of State for Education, may have grown to love their bat ears, many men are now turning to plastic surgery to streamline their profiles.

The number of men having £2,000 operations to have their ears pinned back has soared, according to plastic surgeons. The fashion for Phil Mitchell, EastEnders-style shaved heads, they say, has led to an eightfold increase in demand.

While David Beckham has now grown his hair back, it was his £300 skinhead haircut two years ago that set in motion the new fashion and the lucrative sideline for plastic surgeons.

"In the last 18 months I have corrected more bat ears in men than in the previous 10 years put together," said Colin Rayner, a consultant plastic surgeon at the Bupa hospitals in Worcester and Solihull. "Men who until now concealed their sticking-out ears under long hair are finding the latest hair fashions mean their ears are much more exposed."

His colleagues are finding similar surges of interest. Chris Khoo, a consultant plastic surgeon at Wexham Park Hospital and a spokesman for the British Association of Plastic Surgeons, said: "If you look back to the hippy era, hairstyles would have done quite a lot to conceal prominent ears. Now the fashion is a lot shorter."

Neil, 42, a self-employed builder from Birmingham, says the surgery has made a big difference to his life.

"They were really bad and for years I covered them up with long hair. But now fashion has all changed and I decided to have them done. It's a great operation. You don't know it is being done and the results are fantastic.

"It gives you much more confidence. So-called friends who used to take the mickey now reckon I can run faster because there's not so much wind resistance."

Surgery on protruding ears takes from 45 minutes to an hour. The gristle or cartilage of the ear can also be reshaped, and the tension at the back of the ear adjusted to bring the ear nearer to the head.

The ear, which reaches three-quarters of adult size by the age of seven and is fully grown at 16, can be operated on after the age of five, but in some cases the bat ear develops after birth and needs to be corrected later.

"In this kind of surgery, you work behind the ear, taking a strip of skin away, cutting into the cartilage and sculpting it into the shape that you want," said Mr Rayner. "It is a lot about craftwork."

Once the cartilage has been shaped, the skin is replaced and stitched. During surgery, the ear can be tipped forward or turned to ensure that it is nearer to the side of the head. Because the surgery is behind the ear, it leaves no visible marks.

Just how common bat ears are is not known. But the problems should diminish in the future because babies with protruding ears are more likely now to be given ear splints to mould the cartilage into the right shape.

Except, that is, in Japan, where bat ears are considered lucky.