Morgan and Willis 2: The Sequel by SteDJ

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This story is a follow-up to my earlier story ‘Morgan and Willis’. You might like to read that before reading this sequel. Once again, this is largely a work of fiction, but the depiction of the barber shop accurately reflects a long-gone place I stumbled upon many years ago on a visit to London.


I quickly began to enjoy my new part-time job at Morgan and Willis department store, and immediately began to feel the benefits of a small income of my own. It didn’t take me long to make some new friends among the staff, as there was a fair number of other school-age employees working on Saturdays and weekday evenings. The older staff members working in the food hall were predominantly mature women who had worked there for years, and certain ones were quick to take us newcomers under their wing, helping us to settle in and showing us the ropes. I started with simple tasks like stacking shelves and cleaning, but must have shown promise in my abilities, as within five or six weeks, I was working on the tills and even serving customers on the deli counter. Mrs Howes, the food hall manager, was friendly enough, but ran a tight ship and would often check the boys for clean finger nails and to make sure that we were neatly groomed and that our uniform was clean, as befitting a place where high standards of health and hygiene had to be upheld.

I wasn’t especially keen on the uniform I was required to wear, but as staff, we were all in it together, and I rarely encountered anyone I knew from outside the store. The Morgan and Willis food hall was not often the sort of place frequented by my friends from school, so I was largely spared the mickey-taking that would normally have gone with being dressed in my embarrassingly unfashionable shop assistant attire. My hair hadn’t escaped the Morgan and Willis treatment either, as during the induction day, I had received a mandatory scalping at the hands of one of the in-store barbers, and the taunts and jibes from my school friends and even my family were predictable and painful to endure. Mrs Bairstow, the dragon-like personnel director, had instructed all the boys to keep our hair in the same tragic style for as long as we worked there, and after four weeks, I had received my first warning from Mrs Howes during one of her inspections that my hair was due for a trim. I conveniently turned a deaf ear, for the time being at least.

Eight weeks into the job, it was a usual Saturday morning. I was up early and showered, dressed and after a quick breakfast, ready to go and catch the bus into town. My mum as ever was hovering around and fussing about every detail before I was finally let out of the front door.

"Have you washed behind your ears?"
"Yes Mum."
"Have you got your sandwiches? I made you egg and tuna, your favourite."
"Yes, thanks Mum"
"Have you got your overall? I washed and ironed it for you last night."
"Yes Mum, it’s in my backpack along with my sandwiches…"
"Have you got some money for the bus?"
"Mum, yes, don’t worry, everything’s fine, I’m ready for off. I’ll see you about half six."
"Take care, love, have a good day…"

On arrival at work, Mrs Howes carried out her routine staff inspection as usual. We boys always thought it rather unfair at the time that she concentrated more on us than the girls in terms of her thoroughness, and she commented again about my hair, which after eight weeks, was well and truly in breach of the company’s regulations. I replied in a rather non-committal way that I would have it cut sometime in the coming week, and that was that.

The morning passed without incident until the morning coffee break, when Mrs Howes told me that Mrs Bairstow wanted to see me in her office immediately. I had a sneaking feeling that I knew what this would be about, and it turned out that I was right.

Mrs Bairstow was dressed as usual in one of her frumpy business suit combos, and as I entered her office, she stood up and walked over to me, fixing me with a hard unfriendly stare.

"Mr Martin, when you started here eight weeks ago, in accordance with the company rules relating to staff dress and appearance, you were given a smart short haircut and instructed that you must maintain it that way for as long as you work here. I assume that you wish to continue working for Morgan and Willis?"

"Yes, Mrs Bairstow," I replied meekly, staring down at my feet.

"Well why have you not had your hair cut as you were told? Look at it, it’s a mess, and totally inappropriate for a customer service role in a company like ours. Well?"

My hair was still quite short by the standards of the day, but was now touching my collar, over my eyebrows and half an inch or so over my ears, so no longer the short back and sides that it had been and was still meant to be.

"I haven’t had time, Mrs Bairstow…"

Mrs Bairstow cut me off immediately.

"What rubbish! Young man, you have three evenings per week when you are not working here and could go to the barbers after school, and then you have Saturday lunchtimes. That’s plenty of time, so don’t you dare lie to me that you don’t have time!"

"OK, I’ll go and have it cut this lunchtime," I conceded, still avoiding her piercing stare and looking down at my shoes.

"I know you will," replied Mrs Bairstow, "because I have arranged you an appointment with the barber. Unfortunately, our in-store barber is fully booked today, so I’ve arranged for you to report to Raymond at Raytone barbers round the corner on Jubilee Street at 12.30 sharp."

That was a body-blow if ever there was one. Even though I had never been to the aforementioned barbers, and wasn’t even sure exactly where it was, I felt sure that with Mrs Bairstow in charge, it was unlikely to be a pleasant experience. But then I had an idea that might help me dodge the bullet:

"Mrs Bairstow, I haven’t got any money to pay for a haircut. I’ve only got my bus fare."

"No matter, I’ll phone Raymond and tell him that we will pay for you, and we will deduct the money from your wages. Remember, 12.30, Raymond will be expecting you and he knows exactly what you’re having. When you’ve had it done, come back and see me here. Now off with you."

I spend the rest of the morning with a heavy heart, paying particular attention to my young male colleagues’ haircuts. It would seem that I was the sole rebel, as nobody appeared to have gone more than about three weeks at the most since their last haircut. I contemplated discussing the situation with some of them, but decided against drawing attention to myself just yet â€" there would no doubt be plenty of that later.

Lunchtime came, and I set out to locate the undoubted horror that was Raytone barbers. It didn’t take me long to find it, and my heart sank as I fixed my eyes on a revolving red and white illuminated barber’s pole in the midst of a parade of shops. It wasn’t surprising that I hadn’t taken much notice of the place before, as there was no shopfront as such, just the pole, accompanied by a small faded sign reading ‘Raytone Gentlemens’ Hairdressing’ pointing down a flight of steps to a subterranean premises out of sight of the passers-by in the street.

"Oh well, here goes," I muttered, and made my way with extreme trepidation down the creaking dimly lit wooden staircase. Ahead of me on the wall at the bottom of the stairs was a faded illuminated price list, advertising products and services presumably of a bygone age that I had never heard of, and more to the point really did not want to try. What was a friction? What was pine tar? And what about oil with vibro? And surely singeing was downright dangerous… To the right was a door with a frosted glass panel, which I gingerly pushed open to the sound of a tinkling bell.

To call the place ancient and decrepit would be an insult to the term ancient and decrepit. I had never seen or smelt anything like it. The shop was dominated by two very old chairs mounted on ceramic cream-coloured pedestals; the split upholstery repaired with gaffa tape. The pale blue painted walls were peeling and the lino floor, which was liberally scattered with clumps of cut hair, had been patched up so many times that it was impossible to tell which was the original floor covering. In front of each chair was a chipped and cracked wash basin, above which was a pair of mirrors which were so tired that their reflective qualities were now open to question. One mirror had a plaque reading ‘Raymond’ above it; the other ‘Tony’. So that would explain ‘Raytone’, the name of the business. The usual selection of scissors, clippers, combs and razors littered the counter, and hanging from a peg on the wall was a selection of mismatched and badly creased nylon haircutting capes. It was the smell though that I found most overpowering; it seemed there were problems with the sewers somewhere in the vicinity, and the results of that mixed with cigarette smoke and sterilising fluid made for an unpleasant heady cocktail which assaulted the nostrils with a vengeance. All in all, it was good to tell that health and safety standards in the 1980s still had some way to go.

In Tony’s chair was an elderly man tightly wrapped in a red cape having his neck scraped with a noisy pair of electric clippers. The woman who I assumed to be his wife, sitting on the waiting bench behind him, was smoking as if her life depended on it, and talking ten-to-the-dozen to whoever would listen about some neighbour that nobody was interested in. I had never felt so out of place in my life.

The second barber, who I assumed to be Raymond, suddenly appeared from behind a curtain made up of multi-coloured strips of plastic which concealed the back room of the premises. He appeared to be in his 60s, with lank greasy hair and was dressed in a shirt and tie and navy-blue nylon barber’s jacket.

"Yes, young man, how can I help you?", enquired Raymond, breezily reaching out and grabbing a bright royal-blue cape from the peg and shaking it out in front of him.

"Errm, I’m Christopher Martin… Mrs Bairstow from Morgan and Willis sent me. She said you would be expecting me… errr… I have to have my hair cut…"

"Oh yes, Maureen. Fine woman. One of the bosses there now isn’t she? I remember her when she worked on a fruit and veg stall in the market; how many years ago was that? She’s done really well for herself… now, where were we? Oh yes, a haircut for you, take off your coat and hop in the chair. We’ll soon have you tidied up."

"I just want a trim please," I stuttered nervously, eyeing up out of my eye corner the near-bald gent sitting in the adjacent chair. I nervously eased myself into the battered old chair, my hands clammy and my mouth dry as the creased blue cape sailed through the air, metaphorically sealing my fate as it covered me from head to foot.

"Don’t you worry, young man," said the barber as he applied a sheet of white tissue to the back of my neck before shoving the frayed back of the cape into my shirt collar, constricting my neck rather uncomfortably. "Maureen’s told me what’s to be done. She says you’ve been a naughty boy and you need a proper haircut, so like it or not, that’s what you’re getting, sunshine."

Mrs ‘Cigarette’, sitting on the waiting bench, by now had run out of things to say about her neighbour and had turned her attention to me.

"The trouble with young ‘uns nowadays is that they wouldn’t recognise a smart haircut if one came and hit them in the face. Give him a good scalping is what I say. Down to the wood like our Stan’s havin’ it. That’s a real haircut…" I found her comments to be very unhelpful but could do nothing other than glare at her sulkily in the tarnished mirror.

Meanwhile, Raymond was busy readying himself for the destruction he was about to inflict around my head. Rummaging around on the counter, he selected a set of shiny chrome manual clippers, gave them a squirt with some lubricating oil, picked up his comb and took up his position behind me, firmly shoving my head forward as far as it would go. It was soon apparent to me that the height adjustment on the old barber chair no longer appeared to work as he stooped over and applied the clippers to the back of my head, wasting no time in repeatedly closing the sharp blades with a loud clicking noise as I felt them travelling higher and higher towards my crown. Looking down over my blue nylon-covered knees, at first there were no visible results of Raymond’s onslaught on the back of my head, that was until he flicked his wrist and a massive clump of my blond hair detached from the teeth of the clippers and hit my left shoulder before tumbling down the front of the cape and coming to rest in my lap. To say I was alarmed was an understatement.

"Excuse me, what are you doing back there? I just wanted a trim. I think you’re shaving it too short…"

"Ah, there’s nothing like a fine old pair of manual clippers for a good close cut. Tony there prefers the electric ones, but these go much closer, so just relax and enjoy what’s coming. I can assure you that Maureen will fully approve when I’ve finished. There’s plenty more to come off yet."

Unfortunately, he wasn’t wrong. I could feel the sharp clippers making repeated journeys up the back of my head, and as they crunched through my hair, they would snag painfully, bringing tears to my eyes as the pile of clippings in my lap got bigger and bigger. Raymond continued his orgy of destruction as he moved to each side in turn, roughly folding my ears down, carefully and brutally mowing off every strand of hair at least an inch above each ear until nothing but white skin remained. Mrs Cigarette, whose husband had just got up from the chair with a mere shadow of grey hair remaining after Tony’s efforts with the clippers, clearly approved and addressing Raymond she announced,

"Well, we’ve got to go now. I wish I could stay and watch the rest, but it’s looking good so far. I hope you’re going to blitz the rest off and leave him with a proper haircut. Bye for now."

I swore under my breath, almost unable to bear the humiliation as Raymond picked up a huge pair of shiny scissors, opening and closing them rapidly in the air in front of me in order to provide maximum intimidation. I swear that the scissors must have been the noisiest one I had ever heard, and they relentlessly snapped together around my head with a loud metallic snip, crunching effortlessly through my remaining hair, sending it raining down in front of my eyes and quickly reducing it to no more than an inch and a half all over. I sat there in a state of shock and disbelief, staring at the heaps of blond hair all down the front of my blue cape, hoping and praying that things could surely not get any worse. But they did.

After he had finished snipping away with the noisy scissors to blend the shaved sides into the slightly longer top, everything fell silent, and Raymond draped a grubby grey towel over my shoulders before busying himself at the counter in front of me. Turning round, he then daubed copious quantities of hot having foam around the back and sides of my head, scraping away at any remaining stubble left behind by the clippers to create a band of perfectly smooth white skin at least an inch above my hairline. Wiping away the last remnants of the foam with the grey towel, Raymond then liberally sprinkled the top of my head with some sort of yellow liquid from a jar before combing the remains of my hair into a precise side parting flat to my head. This was a million times shorter than my first Morgan and Willis haircut and I was left looking like a convict.

For the first time in several minutes, Raymond then spoke,

"Right then sunshine, that should do. Tell Maureen that I can always take some more off if she wants it any shorter."

I chose not to reply to the absurdity of his offer, but looked on in miserable resignation fighting back the tears as Raymond showed me the devastation to the back of my head in the hand mirror. The cape was then dragged off me and I was free to get up and leave.

Tony was by now sitting in his chair reading the paper, and I caught his eye in the mirror as I walked past towards the door. He obviously couldn’t resist one final insult,

"See you again soon, skinhead!"

Needless to say, Mrs Bairstow was delighted with my new look and my colleagues thought it hilarious. I only had myself to blame at the end of the day; I had tried to fight the system and failed. I wanted the money, and figured that if I towed the line in future with regard to my hair length and got it cut when I should, I might have a future at Morgan and Willis for a while longer.

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