He was described in his obituary as suffering sight loss, and by Waddell as 'blind'; his will is signed with a cross, suggesting he was unable to read or write.
As Thomas Hair's Hornpipe begins and ends with the same figure as "Roxburgh Castle", it may well have been composed as a companion piece for that tune.
Henry Cotes, of Bedlington), who played the pipes, being taught by Old William Lamshaw, who was piper to the Duke of Northumberland, and by the "celebrated blind youth of B-d-n, Thomas Hair".
[6] Later, in 1831, John Farrer of Netherwitton wrote a poem, in Standard Habbie metre, which has long been associated with poems about piping, praising Hair's playing of the smallpipes,[7] He contrasts this, strongly, with the playing of an inferior piper, perhaps playing Union pipes, near Netherwitton, saying that this piper would mix up well-known tunes: As Farrer addresses this poem directly to Hair, it is clear he expected him not only to be familiar with these tunes, but that unlike the unnamed Union piper, that he would be able to tell them apart.
Purvis's biography [8] states that he visited Bedlington, where he played as a wind-up – the closing part – of an entertainment at the Thomas Hair's public house, the Blue Bell.
It is also apparent from this account, that at this time, The Blue Bell was as much a music hall, offering varied entertainments, as a public house – Purvis played the closing part of what must have been a variety show.
One article in 1854 [9] on a concert he gave at the Bedlington Mechanics' Institute, refers to him as 'the celebrated Northumberland piper', playing, with a pupil, 'some favourite airs in his usual masterly style'.
Hair's obituary [11] states "Upon the violin his touching style and purity of tone in his favourite Scotch airs, were seldom surpassed.
He had the happy gift, when in company, of telling droll anecdotes teeming with the ludicrous, and setting the table in a roar."
It seems much harder to identify the James Coxon who inherited Hair's violin however; the surname is common in the region, and Newcastle was by then a large city.
Hair's pipes were on sale in James Reid's shop in late 1873, and were seen there by Charles Keene, himself an amateur piper.