The Regent Gent's Hairdressing Saloon by SteDJ

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This is another true story about a haircut experience, this time set in 1984, when I had just turned 18.

Those who have read my previous story, "He Needs a Good Cut" will know all about the ordeal I suffered at the hands of the demon barber Mr Harrison, and the brutal haircut he gave me back in 1978. I was truly scarred by the experience and for many years since then, I absolutely hated haircuts and protested in the strongest possible terms whenever the subject cropped up. More often than not, my mum would cut my hair having bought a pair of hairdressing scissors from Boot’s, and I would be summoned for a hatchet job every six weeks or so sitting on a stool in the middle of the kitchen surrounded by sheets of newspaper on the floor and wrapped in an old white tablecloth for a cape. The result was usually a variation on the late 70s "helmet" style, with my hair cut to the tips of my earlobes, over my collar and hacked off in a blunt fringe about an inch above my eyebrows in front. She was no professional, but I suppose at least I should be thankful that my mum did not possess a pair of clippers or even know how to use them, so a short back and sides was pretty much out of the question. Now and then, though, and for reasons best known to herself, she would bundle me off to the barber’s, which I hated even more, as I lived in fear of a repeat of a Mr Harrison-style scalping. It should be noted here that Mr Harrison had presumably retired not long after my memorable visit there, as the shop was now an estate agents, so I had to go somewhere else. Paul’s Modern Gent’s Hairstylist, a more contemporary joint in the local shopping centre therefore became the barber of choice - my parents' choice, that is...

As time moved on, things began to change regarding my attitude to barbers and haircuts. I found myself straining to see inside barber shop widows to catch a glimpse of the victims inside, shrouded in long sheets and losing chunks of their hair to the barber’s floor. I would secretly imagine the excitement of sitting there at the mercy of a scissor happy barber, and would begin to enjoy watching others having their hair cut whilst I was sitting on the waiting chairs at Paul’s. I began to enjoy the sensation of Paul cutting my hair - he never took it too short - and I loved the spectacle of watching my severed locks fall to the brown striped cape. I even began to feel a sense of disappointment when mum cut my hair instead of sending me to the barber’s. Any such foolish thinking soon vanished though when I thought about the end result of an unwanted short haircut in a barber’s shop. I was still keen to conform and fit in with the norms of the day among my friends in terms of appearance, including how my hair was cut.

There was one local barber’s shop that caused particular fascination in those days. The "Regent Gentlemen’s Hairdressing Saloon" up on the main road had been there for ever and had a reputation for a brutally short 1950s haircut repertoire in keeping with its vintage 1950s appearance. The window was decorated with various old haircutting artefacts, adverts for Wilkinson Sword, Brylcream, Vaseline and numerous other hair-related products of the time. There were faded black and white pictures of short haircuts, and amusingly to us teenage boys, a Durex advert displayed in the window. It was impossible to see inside at street level thanks to the frosted glass that extended most of the way up the frontage, but when going past sitting on the top deck of the school bus, it was just possible to catch a glimpse of the old fashioned interior complete with customers covered in white haircutting gowns and two elderly barbers in white smocks. This looked like paradise to me, and somehow, I would have to find my way in there. But how? There was always the nagging thought about what would happen if it all went wrong and I accidentally got scalped.

It was March 1984, and I had a Saturday job stacking shelves in a big supermarket in the same shopping centre as Paul’s barbers. My parents no longer dictated my haircuts, but basically being a good kid, I chose not to rock the boat, and kept my mop reasonably neat within the confines of the ubiquitous early 80s centre parted mullet with regular trims at Paul’s.

One Saturday, however, all that was about to change. I was in dire need of a trim - my hair had become quite ragged over my ears and down my collar and was getting in my eyes. I had decided that it was time to try out the Regent Gentlemen’s Hairdressing Saloon. Part of me knew that this was utter madness, but part of me knew that it had to be done. I could hardly concentrate at work that morning; I was in a world of my own hardly able to believe that my dream was about to come true. Lunch hour finally arrived, and I ran up to the staffroom, threw off my blue work smock, put on my anorak and set off out of the shopping centre and up the road towards the Regent...

The red and white frontage with its twirling barber’s pole and "Haircut Sir?" sign soon came into view, and I could feel my heart rate increasing and my mouth going dry. I slowed down as I approached the shop, and started heading for the door â€" but then I bottled out, and kept on walking. Oh no, what should I do? Can I go through with this? I felt the back of my head and ran my fingers through my long hair, … Yes, it really does need cutting. But what if he cuts it too short? I stood in front of the newsagents next door to the barber’s pretending to look in the window and trying to decide what to do. I know, I could flip a coin… I took a 10p coin from my anorak pocket and flipped it, caught it on the back on my wrist and covered it up with my other hand… Heads is haircut, tails is no haircut. It was tails. Phew. I know, best of three. It was heads. OK, now the decider…………

Heads. With that, I put the coin away, and heart racing, I marched up to the barber’s door, grabbed the handle and pushed. I was met by the inevitable tinkling of a small doorbell and at once hit at by a wall of warm air with that smell that you only got in old fashioned barber's shops - some kind of perfumed sanitiser mixed with cigarette smoke. The elderly barber closest to the door looked scarily similar to the infamous Mr Harrison with his silver hair, shirt and tie and white overall. He was in the middle of scraping the hair off the neck of an elderly gentleman about his own age, as he turned around and stared at me sternly:

"Can I help you, young man?"

"Errr, yes… I’d just… errr… like a trim please, if that’s… err… OK…" I stammered nervously.

"Well shut the door, keep the heat in and take a seat. I’ll be with you shortly."

I was finally inside the Regent Gentlemen’s Hairdressing Saloon and I was going to get my hair cut. Oh my God, what was I doing? Why did I ask if it was OK to have a trim? I’m the customer; I’m in charge, not him. Or so I thought....

The shop was very neat, clean and tidy, but clearly hadn’t changed in years, Paul’s looked positively space age in comparison. This place still had those amazing traditional barber chairs with heavy circular pedestals and foot pedals along with foot rests for the occupants. These were very different from the lightweight office-type swivel chairs that Paul used. The two elderly customers were shrouded in old fashioned plain white capes with a small navy-blue towel tucked into the back of their necks. The wall around the mirrors was fitted out with beautifully polished wooden mirrored cabinets and shelves, and arranged with all manner of bottles and jars. In front of each chair, more adverts for Wilkinson Sword and "Something for the Weekend" decorated the edges of the mirrors, beneath which were white sinks with a knot of rubber hose attachments connected to the tap, which in turn led from an antique gas water heater. An array of scissors, razors and combs were laid out ext to each sink, and a selection of menacing looking clippers hung from the edge of the counter, each one clearly in its correct place. The tiled floor was littered with mostly grey hair clippings yet to be swept up after a busy Saturday morning. A smelly old Calor Gas heater occupied the fireplace, and in the corner was a wooden high chair, the likes of which I had never seen before in a barber’s, but safely assumed that it was for the use of the younger, smaller clients of the establishment â€" if there ever were any. The only sounds in the place were the gentle humming of the clippers along with the occasional comment about this afternoon’s football match or yesterday’s 4.30 horse race at Haydock Park. I had timed it right, as there was nobody else waiting, so I would be next. I looked at my watch â€" I still had 45 minutes of my lunch break left, although it was unlikely that I would actually have time for any lunch. Finally, the barber who had spoken to me on my arrival had released his brutally shorn customer from the chair and was brushing him down with a large wooden clothes brush.

"Next please," said the barber, shaking the rustly cape to free it of the last remaining bits of silver hair from the last customer. The chair had been spun round, its arms reaching out towards me and I sat there initially frozen. Do I really want to do this? A mixture of sheer terror and unbridled excitement had gripped my body.

"Young man, in the chair, please," snapped the barber, staring at me intently. I stood up and tried to look relaxed about the situation.

I gingerly took my place awaiting the inevitable, and the chair was spun back round to face the mirror. "Sit up straight, lad. I can’t cut your hair with you slouching in the chair like that." The white haircut cape then flew through the air, and within seconds I was sealed in and committed to my fate as the barber roughly stuffed the back of the cape into the collar of my white work shirt. The cape was made of a heavy stiff nylon material and I could feel the weight of it bearing down on my shoulders and knees. That was followed by the small blue towel, and the chair was then pumped up high into the air before the barber turned to me and asked:

"How short would you like it cut, young man?"

How short? There's an interesting choice of words. "Just a trim please… not too short… just tidy it up a bit."

"A good trim?" confirmed the barber. "I think we can manage that, but I think we’ll need to give it a shampoo first though, your hair's dreadfully greasy. The clippers always go through clean hair more easily."

"Clippers? I don’t want the clippers. I told you I don’t want it too short." I started to feel panic rising in me. What on earth was I doing??????

The barber chose to ignore my protestations, taking a big white towel and placing it over my shoulders, thoroughly tucking it in round my neck and under my chin. I looked at myself in the mirror finally covered in the white cape and towel of The Regent Gentlemen's Hairdressing Saloon and felt intensely excited if not rather scared, almost unable to believe what was happening. The barber had moved over to the sink under the mirror in front of me and turned on the tap causing the old gas water heater to noisily fire up, and before long, he was obviously satisfied with the temperature of the hot water coming from the rubber hose.

"Lean forward, please," he instructed, as he grabbed my head, and forced it down over the sink. The hot water coursed through my hair and the barber began to massage some sickly-sweet smelling shampoo into my hair, digging his fingers firmly into my scalp as he worked up a lather. The whole experience was wonderfully relaxing, but then shampoo ran over my face and into my eyes, causing them to sting. The trouble was, my hands were trapped under the cape so I could not follow my instinct to give my eyes a good rub. Next, a rinse with more hot water followed by more stinging shampoo and another rinse. The barber then turned off the hot water and wrapped another white towel around my head, patted it to absorb some of the wet, then pulled me back up into the chair. Having rubbed my wet head vigorously, the barber then threw the towel into a basket in the corner of the shop and straightened up my cape to ensure I was properly covered before grabbing his big black comb and running it through my long unkempt hair.

I had expected him to start cutting straight away at this point, but instead, he took a big black hairdryer, and I felt hot air blowing into my face causing me to smart as he wafted it over my head until my long hair was fluffy and dry, at which point he removed the towel from around my shoulders.

My mid-brown hair had grown a fair bit since my last visit to Paul’s and the barber once again combed it out â€" it came half way down my ears, fell a few inches over my collar at the back totally covered my eyes at the front.

Before I could even think, and to my horror, I saw the point of his long sharp scissors appear through the curtain of hair in the middle of my forehead and with a sickening schnik, schnik, schnik about 4 inches of fringe were suddenly history and sitting in the nylon folds covering my lap. He didn’t stop there â€" with rapid precision, the barber continued all the way around my head, lopping off the hair above my ears and almost up to the hairline on the back of my neck. Long chunks of my hair now littered my caped shoulders and all the way down into my lap.

This was getting scary. I felt out of control and unable to do anything about it, as next, the barber selected a huge pair of black clippers, and with a loud ‘clack’ they hummed into life.

"Errrr, please sir, please can I just have a trim without the clippers? Please?"

"I know what I’m doing young man. I’ve been cutting hair for over 45 years. You asked for a good trim, and that’s what you’re getting. If you wanted a fancy modern hairdo, you should have gone to Maureen’s over the road. I don’t know why you came in here to be honest â€" sometimes I just don’t understand you youngsters. This is a traditional gentlemen's barber's shop, not a poncey hair salon, so sit still, be quiet, and let me get on with my job."

That told me. This wasn’t going well, but I had no choice but to meekly sit there and take what was coming to me. "Idiot!!" I said out loud â€" referring to myself of course. The barber shot me a furious look,

"What did you just say?"

"I’m sorry, I didn’t mean you. I was talking to myself. I think you’re right when you said I shouldn’t have come in here. Sorry."

"Right, young man. Apology accepted, but I’ve started now so I’ll have to finish. But one more word from you…"

With that, he dug his comb into the long hair on the side of my head and "bzzzzzzt" â€" ran the clippers over the comb shearing off about 3 inches of hair, which tumbled down onto my shoulders, some of it then sliding down into my lap and some of it hitting the floor to add to the carpet of clippings that had already built up around the chair. This went on for an achingly long time, as the barber zipped the clippers over the comb all over my head, the cable flailing around over in front of my face and over my cape as he drastically reduced my mop to a desperately unfashionable couple of inches length all over. He then set about digging into the hair on the back of my nape with the humming machine of destruction - I could feel the hot steel blade snagging at my hair and shaving it down to nothing. Now that really freaked me out as I hadn't had clippers on my neck like that since my meeting with Mr Harrison six years earlier... Brushing the cut hair from the clippers, he then replaced them on their hook before pulling the blue towel out from the back of my neck and then untucking the nylon cape, removing it and giving it a vigorous shake to dump its mountain of hairy contents onto the floor.

Thinking he had finally finished, I started to move to get down from the chair, only to feel a heavy hand on my shoulder.

"Where do you think you're going, young man? We’re not done yet. Stay right where you are."

I wondered what on earth was about to happen next. I looked at my watch â€" I was due back at work in less than 10 minutes. What a nightmare.

The white cape was flung over me for a second time and tightly tucked back in. Next, an onslaught with the scissors, rapidly clicking away around my head removing any stray hairs that the clippers had missed and evening up the barber’s earlier handywork. A fine shower of small clippings fell all around me in contract to the inches-long hanks of hair that the barber had hacked off with the clippers just earlier. He then turned his attention to my blunt fringe, and fiercely snipped away at it, reducing its weight down to a few short thin strands high on my forehead.

Finally, the barber attacked the back of my neck with his cut throat razor, removing the fluff below my hairline. This was the only truly enjoyable bit of the haircut as it made my spine tingle and caused me to momentarily forget all about how bad I was going to end up looking.

The next bit really took me by surprise though as he grabbed me by the chin and scraped the razor on my upper lip, deftly removing my poor attempt at cultivating a moustache.

"There. I think you'll find that's better, " announced the barber as he combed my hair forward at the front and down at the back and sides, sprayed it liberally with some disgusting smelling stuff from an aerosol can that made me sneeze, then waved his hand mirror behind me. The result was really not good - something resembling a little boy's haircut, no more than two inches long all over, no parting and abruptly cut off round my ears, a few sparse strands across my forehead and shaved into my neck. How on earth was I going to explain this one away? This time I had no one to blame but myself.

The barber gave me a vigorous brushing down, dusted the back of my neck with some kind of powder, let the chair down, and once again removed the white cape. He passed me a tissue, I paid him the £3.20 he asked for and with my neck itching from the stray hair clippings down my shirt collar, I ran like mad to get back to the supermarket and back into my blue work smock before I was missed.

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