‘Be interested, be curious, hear what’s not said’: how I learned to really listen to people | Annalisa Barbieri

Being a good listener isn't just about shutting up and not interrupting - it's about really taking in what someone is telling you

When I was a young girl, a fabulous woman called Pam who lived opposite us would come to do my mum's hair once a week. Pam was a retired hairdresser and beautician who had been taught partly by Vivien Leigh's mother.

I knew this because I listened as she and my mother talked. My mum would sit under the stand hairdryer with wads of cotton wool curling out from under her hairnet to protect her ears from the heat, and Pam would talk and talk: about Margaret Thatcher (my mum wasn't a fan); their early lives (Pam's in Yorkshire, my mum's in Naples); and about life up and down the London street where we all lived.