JonoLancaster was only 36 hours old when his parents abandonedhim at a hospital in Yorkshire. Born with a raregenetic condition, Treacher Collins syndrome, which affectscraniofacial development in the womb meant he had nocheekbones, and "little Bart Simpson ears". Adoptedinto a loving family, things were fine until he got tosecondary school, he told RNZ's Kathryn Ryan.
"Theteenage years were when I noticed that I was different. Andit wasn't good to be different back then," he said. Hestruggled through his teenage years, learning to hate hisface, he said.
He even cut his own hair as he couldn't standlooking in the barber's mirror. "My mum would give mefive pounds to go and get my hair cut. And I was like yeah,I'll do it.
And my mum would go away into town and do thefood shopping and I didn't go to the hairdresser's. I putthe five-pound note in my pocket and I went home and I hadthis routine to cut my hair. "And I did that because Ihated going to the hairdresser's just a simple thing ofgoing to the hairdresser, I couldn't do it, sitting in thatchair, looking in the mirror, at a face that hated more thananything.
I couldn't do it." So, he gave himself asuccession of "dodgy bowl cuts," he said. "My mumsays, 'why do you keep on going to these hairdressers? And Iwas like, 'Oh, Mum, it's fashion, it'sstyle.
" Eventually after a reclusive period in hisearly 20s, he was persuaded to take a bar job. Twoencounters there changed his life. "One night this guywalked into the bar, head-to-to.