The Barber was a wizened and
enigmatic character, his thinning hair Brylcreemed back, or sidewards in a
comb-over if it was thinning too much.
His face was haggard and he smoked; he looked a bit like a jockey. You didn’t want to piss this guy off:
he could kick you out of the shop, or probably something worse.
My first haircut in New Zealand was
in 1955, in Whanganui. I don’t
remember getting it cut in England, but oh boy this was memorable. The shop smelled of Bay Rum, Brylcreem,
and cigarette smoke. I was five.
My Dad took me, and The Barber had this enormous wrought iron barber’schair. I was thinking, “how am I going to get up into that?”, when he produced
a seat on a plank that sat across the arm-rests, and lifted me up onto it. It had leather padding and its own
little arm-rests, and I felt really special. But the hand-operated clippers pulled at my hair and I
squirmed. Eventually The Barber
got so grumpy he whacked me over the head with the handles of the
scissors. I didn’t dare cry, and
Dad didn’t come to my rescue, such was the manly power of The Barber.
Later, in Tawa, The Barber’s became
a regular ritual. You’d be dropped
off there to wait your turn and get your hair cut, usually on a Friday after
school. There was a long bench
seat that ran around three sides of the shop, and you took your place at one
end and shuffled along as each boy’s hair was done. Sometimes there were too many waiting and you had to stand
until a seat became free. There
were comics to read, and that was the best thing. We were only allowed “Classics” comics at home, which told
the stories of Dickens and the like in comic form, but here was the real thing:
Phantom, all the Disney characters, and best of all, war comics. Battler Britton, scrambled by an air
raid during a cricket match on the village green, runs out of ammo over
occupied France, and bowls the cricket ball he had stuffed into his battledress
pocket to switch over the railway points and send the German ammunition train
crashing into a horrendous explosion!
We always drew Spitfires and Hurricanes on the backs of our school
books.
The Barber had a big poster behind
the counter. It was a kangaroo,
leaping, with envelopes spilling out of its (her) pouch, and the caption “We post
to Australia”. I sat and stared at
this, and I still don’t know what it meant. I suspect it had to do with gambling; maybe the barber was
an agent for Tattersall’s Lottery or something. It was all exotic and dark. Men, real men who smoked and swore, would come in, and the
barber would leave off cutting hair and go behind the counter. There would be a quiet conversation and
money would change hands, but I never understood what was going on. Later I learned that barbers sold condoms
(we called them “Frenchies”), but I always suspected these clandestine
transactions had something to do with the flying kangaroo.
After an hour or two of comics and
shuffling along the bench, you’d finally get to have your hair cut. It was always a bit off the top and
short back and sides, even if you asked for something else. When the cutting was done, he’d
violently rub in some Brylcreem, slapping your head about in the process, comb
and brush your hair into a bit of a style, flick the cut hairs off your collar,
and finish off with a little spray of smelly stuff. Everyone’s hairstyle was the same.
By about 1964 we all wanted Beatles
haircuts, long enough to be thought Fab, but short enough not to earn a
detention. The barber never
understood this; we all walked out with short back and sides, then put off our
next visit as long as we could and combed our hair, what was left of it,
forward as much as we could; making the best of a bad job, a bit like The
Barber’s comb-over.
After the barber’s, if you were
lucky, was fish and chips for dinner, and you could buy a classic comic at the
bookshop, or a 45 rpm record. I
remember buying “A Fool Such As I” by Elvis Presley. I’ve still got it somewhere. But no more barber’s for me; I don’t have enough hair any more.
Hey, great stuff you've written here. I also wrote something about an antique barber chair (US setting) a few months ago. Here's hoping you'll read it too. http://thatantiquebarberchair.blogspot.com/2013/01/history-of-koken-barber-chairs.html
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