I wonder if you remember the television programme 'What's My Line'? Originally it was on radio but fairly quickly, as television became more available, it was transferred to the box and there it remained for many years - and a very popular show it was. If you're too young to recall it let me enlighten you. A panel of celebrities were faced with contestants with unusual jobs. They then had to try and guess the individual's job by asking questions to which the contestants could only answer 'yes' or 'no'. The celebrities took it in turns to ask the questions and if they got a 'yes' they could ask a further question but, if they got a 'no', the questioning passed to the next member of the panel. If the contestant scored ten 'no's' before the panel guessed their occupation then they were judged to have beaten the panel and walked away with a certificate - heady reward in the early days of television quiz shows!

Well you can imagine the odd jobs they got presented with: A saggar maker's bottom knocker was one of my favourites, another winning contestant I remember was a panel beater by trade. Mostly though the contestants had mundane jobs like a hat-check girl in a night-club or a railway station announcer and that's where I came in. I desperately wanted to go on that programme as I believed my job would have really fooled them. In order to take part you had to telephone a BBC secretary or assistant producer and leave a recorded message stating your job and telephone number where they could contact you. I must have rung that number tens of times, perhaps even hundreds, but I never got called back. I tell you that was one of the biggest disappointments in my life.

My job? Oh, well the programme's over now, so I don't mind telling you - I'm a Ladies Pubic Hairdresser. OK, you can snigger if you want to, but it's a skilled trade nevertheless and we Pubic Hairdressers - I don't suppose there's more than a handful of us in Europe, yet alone England - pride ourselves on the way we can fashion intricate designs to meet the most stringent demands. Of course, most of my ladies just want a trim and tidy up but there's quite a number who like to be 'in the fashion,' as it were. By far the most popular designs are hearts and diamonds but I also get asked for Adolf Hitler moustaches a lot and thin vertical lines are always in demand - with some of the saucier ladies then asking me to add an arrow head. But there are some customers whose demands push me to the limits of my creative skill.

One wanted me to fashion an oak tree on her. Sadly, I had to point out that her best foliage was at the wrong end but, since she insisted, I produced an oak tree for her but it had to be upside down. Still, she was most appreciative and told me it always gave her the greatest pleasure when she was in the bath. Another lady, who was married to a sailor, wanted a three-masted schooner but, on that occasion, I had to tell her that, unfortunately, she didn't have enough raw material for a work of that magnitude so she had to be content with a yacht.

Of course I always take a picture of the finished work and I have a number of albums in my study filled with photos of my handiwork which you might find interesting. Tell you what. If you're not doing anything this weekend why don't you come round and have a look at them - and, while you're at it, I'm still pretty handy with my clippers and scissors so, if you see a design you'd fancy yourself, well you now know what my line is.

"What's my line?" by Dermot Hoare