Children’s Balamory favourite, Julie Wilson Nimmo, has explained that she modelled Miss Hoolie’s groovy hairstyle on the lead singer from 90s US dance group Deee-Lite.



The actress, 54, said she asked for the “lampshade” hairstyle after seeing singer Lady Miss Kier in the psychedelic video for the group’s global hit “Groove Is in the Heart”.

Balamory was a huge hit with preschool kids over four series from 2002 until 2005, and nursery teacher Miss Hoolie is set to return to screens next month when the series returns to CBeebies after 21 years.

Wilson Nimmo said: “The inspiration behind Miss Hoolie’s hair was from the band Deee-Lite and the song they’re most famous for, Groove is in the Heart.

“I was very lucky to have input into what the hair would be like and was obsessed with Deee-Lite at the time.

“The singer of the band was called Lady Kier, and she’s super cool. She had a hairband and her hair would come down and go up in a flick.

“It was a look, and so I asked for that, and they all said yes and it was great.

“Then cut to me on set every day, I had two of the make-up girls with thick tongs pulling my hair down and curling it to the point where people would say ‘is that a wig you’re wearing?’

“No, that was my own hair, getting tonged to death every single time.”

The process, which took around an hour every day to perfect, had to be done out of sight of children to keep the magic of Miss Hoolie alive.

Wilson Nimmo added: “We did it away from the kids because they always knew me in character.

“I’d be standing just off set getting curled to death, but that’s the price you pay for having an iconic hairdo.”

BBC children’s show Balamory was filmed in Tobermory on Mull and set in a fictional Scottish town.

It became a staple of early childhood entertainment, with “home-grown storytelling” about the much-loved nursery school and the small island community that surrounds it.

Wilson Nimmo has since appeared in a string of TV and radio programmes, including police spoof Scot Squad, as well as in iconic sitcom Still Game alongside her husband Greg Hemphill, with whom she has also hosted a BBC Scotland series exploring their passion for wild swimming.

Viewers will see her return to Balamory when the first new episodes in over two decades screen on CBeebies and BBC IPlayer, blending familiar characters such as Miss Hoolie and PC Plum, portrayed by Andrew Agnew, with a host of brand new characters.

New characters include scientist and inventor Ava Potts, played by Danielle Jam; the Harbour Master, played by William Andrews; and local vet Dr Ollie, played by Carl Spencer.

Two new series, each with ten new 14-minute episodes, were commissioned, “lovingly reimagined for today’s families”.

Groove is in the Heart was a global hit for Deee-Lite, reaching number two in the UK singles charts in 1990, controversially kept off the top spot by “The Joker” the 1974 Steve Miller Band hit, which was re-released after it featured in a Levi’s TV advert.