Mum - Can you give him a cut like that boy in the film, the one he looks a bit like?
Greek barber - Which film is that? Bugsy Malone?
Mum - No, the one where the kid has 3 sixes on his head.
Greek barber - Ah, The Omen. (Picks up two bowls) Which one?
Mum - The bigger one.
More than 40 years later there is still a Greek barber in that same shop. And coincidentally I’m now back in that area, working in the school next door to him. He constantly rings our office to complain that our students are scaring away his customers (he erroneously applies the plural every time) and demands that we come down and clear them away. He’s done this when I’ve been there to see exactly what the kids are (or rather, aren’t) doing. His ‘salon’ is between us and a chicken shop, so teenagers naturally end up standing outside his shop for a few minutes at a time. He’s a miserable bastard, who hates being referred to as a barber, once pointing out to the Head during an argument that he’s a hair stylist. So we make a point of saying quite loudly to the kids, ‘Come away from the barbershop!’ We also laugh at his sign that says, ‘Haircuts - 20% off.’ What if you wanted it shorter than that?
I’ve got a lengthy unaccounted-for period after we moved from those flats, when I can’t remember who cut my hair, but it retained its Damien style. It was probably either the butchers or the local council. I suffered for a long time with tufts that wouldn’t lie flat. Then we moved to Palmers Green, and I started to regularly use a cheap (and, yes you guessed it, Greek) barber who had a chair and a mirror at the back of a hardware store. Pretty sure he used cheap secateurs from one of the shelves.
I always asked for a Bono mullet, despite his attempts to draw my attention to the wall where there was a range of black and white photos from the 70s of blokes with overly-groomed, coiffered cuts, most looking a bit like David Hunter from Crossroads. Roll forward ten years and I was working in a school in Hornsey using the Greek barber in the high street and he had exactly the same photographs. With one addition - the white (and much ridiculed) rapper, Vanilla Ice. One for the young and trendy, eh. I’d always ask for the David Hunter cut, though.
I was once in Golders Green at a loose end, while my wife was doing something, and I was desperate for a haircut, so I took a risk and went into a unisex salon. For some reason they were all Japanese girls in there. And they seemed somewhat perplexed by my request, especially when I referenced clippers, as I intended to have it number 2 or 3 at the back and sides. After a search, they located some in a drawer, but the girl cutting my hair appeared so unfamiliar and so ill at ease with them, that you’d think she was handling a turd. That haircut didn’t turn out quite how I wanted it.
Then when we moved to Borehamwood, I discovered some Italian barbers, brothers, all consistently adept with the clippers, all of whom managed to avoid exceeding the boundaries I like to establish regarding conversation when I’m getting my hair cut. That is, I don’t go there for a fucking chat, I go for a haircut. Say hello, ask about work and where I’m going on holiday and then leave it be. Thank you.
These barbers were so well suited to my ideal hair-cutting experience, that I spent many years driving back there after moving to St Albans. Until a barber’s opened up in a small parade of five shops just a minute’s walk from our house. I gave that a go. Not as good as the Italians, but not noticeably shit either. It was cheap and too convenient not to stick with. Even though he chatted, non-stop. Worse than that, he couldn’t chat and cut simultaneously, so by stopping to talk about whatever action films he’d seen recently, he would take about two hours to finish. (About the same as how long it took driving back to the Italians in the ‘Wood and waiting in a queue.).
This convenient situation came to an abrupt end recently when he went back to his home country of Jordan and never returned. Shop shut, website closed down. So then what?
My son tried a place ten minutes walk away and they gave him a good haircut so I went there last time. Not sure I’ll go back. The barbers are all young, skinny jean-clad, shiny-bearded, blokey blokes, who offer you a beer over the sound of white noise from the bland song selection on the stereo. They try to inflict their own love of self-grooming on you by taking 30 minutes of pointless micro-clipping on the areas above your ears. And they called me ‘mate’ but you could tell they wanted to call me ‘bruv’ and wisely held back due to my age and permanent expression of contempt.
So there you go. I’m back in barbershop limbo. I’ll grow it long and do it myself with the bigger bowl from now on.
