And other immigrants.
My mother always said in the 60s and 70s that if I kept my hair long I'd go bald. She was right about the outcome if not the cause. Genetically of course it's all her fault.
I had long hair back then because it was the fashion. I was not a dedicated follower of fashion but the fashion gave me the cover to avoid a least favoured duty. - a trip to the barbers. The only people who had hairdressers back then were Ladies and racy Aunty Muriel's Italian waiter friends.
Ben Ford was our local Barber in a small shop under the Picture House full of manly talk and Adult Quips all tolerating the lads but only giving a wooden board polished by a thousand bums as a concession to smallness.
I moved away and spent years not being brave enough to introduce myself to new tonsure den. Ben Ford had introduced me to the world of Giles Cartoon Books and varicose veins as I stood to let the old chaps in the circular queue whose rules I never fathomed and I couldn't face starting it again
Later as the hair grew less on top and I sported a beard to stop older people remarking how young I was I tried new clipper joints.
A Social Worker friend introduced me to an Australian Woman who washed my hair beautifully and whose partner cut my hair in purple Engineer Boots and a selection of Rock Band T Shirts. The cost for a trip there would be a day's takings for poor old Ben.
I tried others, got a friend to do it and bought some trimmers for myself. I tried people in the local Unisex establishments but they kept moving on. Then the boys arrived.
At just about the same time as I realised I looked like the yet to be invented Jeremy Corbyn and needed a shorter style and regular beard trims a group of Asians, don't know where from - they could be From the Middle East, opened just up the hill.
I went. I went back and realised what I didn't like about other hair cutters. I don't do chatting. I don't care about the weather, holidays, local night clubs or Sue's Subaru. I want to say what I want have a haircut and get out. I now have an agreement with one if the guys. I tell him the number of the cutter for each of the hair and beard and he does it. It took a little getting right. I did once go home looking like a Solzhenitsyn character but that's the price you pay. He cuts, doesn't talk about football or work and I tip him my old wrinklies discount.
- I have tonsorial tranquility.
