Just Like A Proper Little Barber by SteDJ

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“Now then lad, tell us why you’re so good."

Mr Wilkins fixed me with a piercing stare as I sat there blushing and struggling to come up with a suitable answer. As job interviews went, this had not got off to the best of starts.

“Errr… I don’t really know," I replied, shuffling in my seat and looking down at the floor.

“You don’t know? Well, if you want a job in my barber’s shop, you’ll have to do better than that. Can you sweep floors? Can you keep things neat and tidy? Can you be friendly to my customers? Well?"

“Yes, Mr Wilkins. I can do all those things."

“Right then lad. It looks like we’re getting somewhere."

It was 1981 and I had just turned 16 years old. I was desperate to start earning some cash of my own, and my parents had agreed to let me have a Saturday job. Like many kids at that time, I had envisaged stacking shelves in a supermarket, washing dishes in a café or collecting glasses in a pub. However, my mum was friends with the wife of the owner of the gent’s barbers on the high street, and she had put in a word for me. I was therefore summoned for my first ever job interview one evening after school, and that’s how I had found myself now being grilled by Mr Wilkins, the owner of John’s Gents’ Hairdressers.

I had never set foot inside Mr Wilkins’ premises before. For some time, I had been sent by my mum to the unisex salon in the shopping centre for my haircuts, an arrangement I was reasonably happy with, as John’s had always struck me as a bit old fashioned and untrendy, the sort of place your grandad would frequent for a short back and sides. This was therefore the first time I had met Mr Wilkins, who was quite a formidable man, straight talking, tall, well-built with slicked jet-black hair, mutton chop sideboards and smartly dressed in a shirt and tie and white nylon jacket. We were sitting in the small shabby back room of the barber’s shop, which was a combination of a small kitchen-cum-storeroom, with shelves stocked with all manner of barbering paraphernalia including bottles of shampoo, towels and packets of razor blades. There was also a kettle, a whole load of unwashed coffee cups, several overfilled ashtrays an old washing machine along with a coat rack decked with spare nylon overalls and barber capes.

Out front, the shop was somewhat tidier, with five traditional hydraulic barber chairs with padded arms and metal footrests, each opposite a shiny black basin and a big square mirror. A red vinyl waiting bench ran the full width of the shop, behind which was the net curtained frosted window. The floor was laid with traditional black and white chequered lino tiles, which had started to wear thin around the base of each chair. The effect was completed with bright fluorescent lighting and an old gas heater in the corner. So, all in all, a lot more traditional and more old-fashioned than what I was used to.

The interview continued.

“You come highly recommended as a sensible and hard-working young lad," continued Mr Wilkins. “What do you want to do when you leave school?" Again, the fixed stare.

“Errr, I want to go to university, maybe to do business studies…"

“So, you don’t see yourself as a barber in the future?"

“No, I don’t think so…"

“OK, then." More routine questions followed, and Mr Wilkins outlined what I would be doing if he gave me the job. I would of course sweep up hair from the floor, make coffee, keep everything neat and tidy, greet the customers, do the laundry â€" along with anything else that any of the barbers deemed necessary, all for a weekly wage of £7.50, which seemed to be par for the course for a Saturday job back in those days.

“Do we have a deal then, lad?" asked Mr Wilkins, holding out his hand ready to shake on the arrangement.

“Yes, Mr Wilkins, thank you. Thank you very much." I had seriously mixed feelings about the whole idea, as I thought Mr Wilkins was a bit scary, and I wasn’t all that keen on spending so much time in such close proximity to him and his scissors… Still, a bird in the hand, and all that. If a better job came up in a supermarket, I could always leave and take that instead.

“Right then, let’s start as we mean to go on." said Mr Wilkins, “Let’s see if we’ve got something to fit you", and he stood up and began to rummage through the nylon overalls on the coat rack.

“Here, put this on," he said, as he handed me a rustly white nylon overall with press studs up the front. I was quite small for my age, so the coat was several sizes too big for me and reached below my knees. I had to roll up the cuffs, but Mr Wilkins seemed to be satisfied and deemed the general effect to be smart enough for employment in his shop. “I will expect you to turn up in a shirt and tie, smart trousers and shiny shoes, OK?"

“Yes, of course Mr Wilkins. Thank you." I felt it a was good strategy to show an eagerness to please.

“Right, I’ll show you round and you can meet my barbers," announced Mr Wilkins as he held the door open for me and ushered me into the shop.

Four of the five chairs were occupied, each customer draped in a long bright blue nylon cape and sitting impassively as their hair fell. The only sounds in the shop came from the busily clicking scissors and gently humming clippers.
I was duly shown around and introduced to the other four barbers, and was just getting ready to take off my overall and go home, when Mr Wilkins dropped the bombshell.

“OK, young lad (why didn’t he call me by my name?), one more thing. Let’s have you in the chair."

“What? I mean Pardon…?"

“I said ‘In the chair.’ You need to lose some of that haystack off your head now you’re going to work for me." Mr Wilkins was brandishing a blue haircutting cape and nodding towards the empty barber’s chair. “Come on lad, I haven’t got all day."

I suppose my hair was slightly on the long side, over my ears and a couple of inches over my collar at the back, but nothing unusual for the standards of the day.

“But, please sir, I mean Mr Wilkins, I only had it cut two weeks ago and I don’t want short hair…"

“What you want and what you need are two completely different things in this case," said Mr Wilkins, a tone of irritation now entering his voice, “so if you are going to work here, you tow the line or get out. You can’t work in a barber’s shop with scruffy hair â€" it’s not exactly a great advert to our customers, is it? Anyway, it’s your choice." That stare again…

“Can you just trim it a little bit…?"

“LISTEN LAD, either get in the chair or GET OUT! How many times do I have to tell you?"

By now, I had gained an audience from the waiting bench, and I was mortified to see Mr Jeffries, our next-door neighbour, along with Nigel, his teenage son paying close attention to the unfolding drama.
“I think you should do as he says," said Mr Jeffries. “A decent haircut would do you no harm. You should take a leaf out of Nigel’s book â€" I always make sure he looks smart with a monthly trim from Mr Wilkins." Mr Jeffries’ son was a weird nerdy sort, whom, perhaps unfairly, nobody at school liked and who sported a haircut straight from the 1950s.

“Right then, off you go, get out of here." said Mr Wilkins, now totally exasperated with my lack of cooperation. “I can easily find someone else to work for me. Perhaps young Nigel would like to earn a few extra bob a week…"

I suddenly found myself in a tricky situation. I couldn’t bear the thought of being usurped by Nigel, and I really did want the money. Perhaps a haircut wasn’t too big a price to pay for a steady income, at least for the time being.

“OK, Mr Wilkins, I’m sorry, I’ll have my hair cut. I’m sorry I didn’t do as I was told." Another weak attempt at being eager to please…

With that, I made my way to the chair, nervously eased myself up onto the black leather cushion and sat staring at my sad reflection in the mirror, waiting for the worst to happen.

“About bl**dy time!" said Mr Wilkins, still with a tone of exasperation dominating his manner.

I didn’t have long to wait. The cape was flung over me and it soon came to rest, covering me from my neck to my toes. I was now firmly sealed in, the back of the cape tightly tucked into my shirt collar as Mr Wilkins vigorously pumped up the chair to a suitable working height for him high above the floor.

“Right lad, let’s get this mop knocked into shape," said Mr Wilkins as he began to drag his comb through my blond locks, before grabbing a large pair of shiny silver scissors from the counter.

“OK, ready? Here we go…" I certainly wasn’t ready for what happened next. Mr Wilkins buried the blades of the scissors into the long hair on the top of my head, scooped up a long section, and with a loud rasping crunch, scissors-over-comb he lopped off a huge 3-inch-long chunk of hair. My jaw dropped as the great hank of hair noisily tumbled down the front of the cape and came to rest in a lifeless heap in my lap between my knees.

“Excuse me sir, isn’t that a bit short?" I exclaimed in sheer panic.

“Not if I say so, lad," replied Mr Wilkins, now into a determined rhythm with his comb and scissors, sending more and more hair to the cape. I watched in a combined state of awe and horror as the mound of hair in my lap grew and grew, chunks raining down relentlessly in front of my eyes, inches at a time. Barely an inch and a half remained, and the short hair on top was left sticking up like a hedgehog. A crunching attack of the thinning shears followed next, yet more hair falling before my eyes, before he lopped my off my long fringe in a slanted line high on my forehead.

“Right lad, that’s starting to look a bit more like it," said Mr Wilkins as he used both hands to roughly shove my head forwards so my chin ended up almost buried in my cape. It was almost as though he was forcing me to focus on the shocking carnage he had created, as all I could see was the blue cape and copious amounts of what had been my hair scattered all over it. I couldn’t bear to look, and I raised my head, but only to see the idiot Nigel sitting behind me grinning like a Cheshire cat at me in the mirror. I really was between a rock and a hard place.

“Head right down and keep still, lad," barked Mr Wilkins. It was then that things got even worse, as I heard a sickening electric ‘clack’ behind me followed by the dull humming noise of a pair of electric clippers.

In a heightened state of shock and panic, I one more raised my head, and bravely turned round in the chair to confront Mr Wilkins. As I did so, an avalanche of cut hair fell from the back of my cape to the floor.

“Please Mr Wilkins, I haven’t had the clippers since I was a little kid, please, please don’t make me have them, please…"

Mr Wilkins did not speak. He simply grabbed my head once again and shoved it with all his might back into position, almost breaking my neck in the process, ready for the onslaught of the clippers. Resting his heavy hand on the top of my head in a vicelike grip to ensure I couldn’t move again, he began his attack by running the machine quickly and forcefully up the back of my head. The powerful clippers growled and crunched their way through whatever hair remained on the back and sides as Mr Wilkins roughly steered my head left to right and up and down to ease their passage. In contrast to what had been cut off with the scissors, millions of tiny hairs rained down and built up in a fine carpet all over my caped shoulders, then clipper-over-comb action followed as the barber then proceeded to blend the near-shaved back and sides into the slightly longer top. I could never remember seeing myself with such short hair as I gloomily surveyed my reflection in the mirror. White skin was visible where he had clippered the sides of my head, and my ears stuck out more than I ever remembered. This was surely a bad dream, and I would soon wake up with my hair back intact. If only…

“OK, lad, nearly done," announced Mr Wilkins as he brushed the hair clippings off my shoulders and draped me with a fluffy white towel. Next, he liberally daubed my hairline with copious quantities of warm foam with a small shaving brush before scraping round my hairline with a cut-throat razor. A thrilling tingling sensation pulsed through my entire body as the razor did its business, and as Mr Wilkins scraped away, I was soon left with arches high above my ears and white shaved skin where I once had sideboards. When would the brutality end?

The answer was not just yet, as Mr Wilkins picked up a jar of a white cream-like substance from the counter and scooped out a large dollop, rubbed it between his hands then roughly massaged it into the remains of my hair, ensuring that every single strand was thoroughly coated with the sticky sweet smelling gunge. Finally, Mr Wilkins took his big black comb and created a razor-sharp parting along the left side of my head, carefully crafting a shiny 1950s short back and sides. The cream made my blond hair look much darker than usual, almost as though it was wet. As I inspected Mr Wilkins’ work in the hand mirror, the sad irony was not lost on me that I looked like a dead ringer for Nigel now. I felt humiliated and embarrassed beyond words as the chair slowly sank back to the ground and I was freed from the hair-laden blue cape.

“Right, lad, grab a brush and you can practise doing a bit of sweeping, said Mr Wilkins." As I consigned the huge mound of blond hair on the floor around the chair to the rubbish bin, I couldn’t believe that just 15 minutes earlier, it had been mine.

“Doesn’t he look great?" laughed Mr Jeffries. “Just like a proper little barber with his white coat and smart haircut."

Nigel just sat there staring at me with a stupid grin on his face, clearly relishing my embarrassment.

As I was about to shoot then both a filthy look and say something unrepeatable, I remembered that they were customers and I was now staff, being paid money to be here, so however ridiculous I looked, I had to be nice to them. “Thank you, That’s very kind of you."

“Next please!" shouted Mr Wilkins, giving the cape a vigorous shake. Nigel stood up and made his way to the chair. How I wished I really was a proper barber so I could grab the clippers and shave the little twit’s head bald…

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