I’m seven years old and Harry Davies is my barber. His business, with attached living accommodation, is on the corner of Racecommon Road and Clarendon Street.
Harry is perfect for the job because he’s chatty and his choice of professions is limited. You see, Harry has a bad limp and no one knows the cause of it. Some of my mates at Agnes Road School say he was injured as a paratrooper in the war but others claim his limp is the result of some childhood illness.
Anyway, none of my friends like going to his barber’s shop because Harry knows exactly what sort of haircut parents insist on for their boys: Short back and sides with plenty off the top – which is just as well because that’s the only style Harry knows. Anyway, getting their money’s worth is all parents are interested in.
For a week after a Harry Davies haircut you are the butt of everyone’s joke, from the local window cleaner to the milkman.
“Has Tonto scalped thi?”
“Who cut thi hair? Shaky Sid?”
“Wow! What a haircut. Did he use a knife and fork or a lawnmower?”
My mam and dad always try to reassure me with: “Tek no notice of ‘em. They’re only jealous. You look as smart as a soldier with that new haircut.”
“A soldier? Really?”
During the Christmas holiday of 1962 I’ve put off having a haircut for weeks but on the Friday between Christmas and New Year I’m given strict orders to get it done.
“I’m not having short back and sides,” I tell my mam. “I’ll just have a trim, I think.”
“You’ll have no such thing. Do you think me and your dad are made of money?”
I walk into the shop and find almost every seat is taken. Harry hobbles around the customer in the chair with a comb in one hand and silver scissors in the other. “You’re going to have a long wait, young man.”
I sit and look around the shop for something that interests me. There are old photos of the Shaw Inn football team from yesteryear, colourful adverts for Brylcream and a list of prices for various services, like haircut, trim, shave, singe, etc.
Uh! Why would anyone pay to sing a song in a barber’s shop? I think they might have spelled the word ‘sing’ wrong anyway. Idiots.
Then there’s a shelf with a photo of a delighted man and woman, with the caption: “Something for the weekend, sir?”
The shop is red hot and I start to feel drowsy. Soon it’s my turn. Oh no. Please don’t get the baby chair out for me, Mr Davies. I’m seven and a big boy now. But he does, and helps lift me into the high chair like an infant and wraps a cape around me.
“Just a trim please, Harry,” I say, whilst staring in the mirror.
“A trim? You sure? he asks, looking over his black-rimmed specs.
“Yep. My mam says just a trim this time.” I haven’t a clue why I’ve told this whopping lie. It as though someone else is saying it on my behalf.
“I don’t want your mam sending you back to have more cut off.”
I smile and shut my eyes as Harry snips at my fringe. Then suddenly, bang! I’ve dozed off and fallen forward into the sink. My lip is still bleeding as I hand over my two-bob piece and dash home in the dark.
When my mam sees my haircut she shouts: “What on earth...? Don’t you dare tell me you’ve had your hair cut! You better just turn around and tell Harry bloody Davies that you want short back and sides. And what’s happened to your lip? You haven’t been fighting again have you?”
“No I haven’t and I’m not going back to Harry Davies’s, mam. I feel daft.”
“You feel daft? That’s nowt to what you’ll feel if you don’t. You either get it cut properly or there’s no staying up for our New Year’s Eve party.”
As soon as I open the door to the barbers, Harry tells me to jump into the baby chair, saying: “Hmmm. I knew it! I just knew it! Now what style would you like, sir?”
I close one eye and with the other, look up at the ceiling as though the decision needs some careful consideration. “Hmmm. I think I’ll have short back and sides, this time, with plenty off the top.”
