Mr Arnold by SteDJ

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It was September 1978, and I was 14. Over the summer, we had moved house to a new part of the country, which had obviously necessitated a change of school. After three years at The Mount Grammar School, a prestigious fee-paying private school in my old town, my parents had arranged a place for me at St Vincent’s Grammar School, a similar institution close to where I now lived. So not only had there been the expense of moving house, but also the cost of new school uniform and sports kit. One subject that was yet to be resolved though, was the matter of my hair. This of course was the 70s, the decade of long centre-parted helmet cuts, and mine was perfectly in keeping with the trends of the time, especially given that it had been over two months since my last haircut. My previous school had been fairly liberal with its rules on boys’ hair, and as long as it was clean, tidy and not excessively long, nothing much was said. Things, however, were about to change, and not for the better.

It was Sunday afternoon, the day before the start of the new term at school, and I was round at a friend’s house, making the most of my final hours of freedom. James and I obviously hadn’t known each other for long, but we got on well, and he was also a pupil at St Vincent’s. It hadn’t escaped my attention that he had recently received a rather severe new haircut, and on mentioning the subject to him, he was quick to point out that the school rules forbade anything longer than a short back and sides, and that anyone in breach of the rules was dealt with by Mr Arnold, the resident school barber. Mr Arnold, he told me, was in fact a retired barber who worked part-time at the school mainly for the benefit of the boarders, but it wasn’t unheard of for him to be called upon to inflict his services on the dayboys as well when it was deemed necessary.

"So, guess who’ll be seeing Mr Arnold in the morning?" he laughed, ruffling my mop of long mousy hair.

I gave the subject no further thought until I got home, when my mother greeted me at the door with a tone of exasperation in her voice.

"Where’ve you been? I told you that you needed to be at home today to get ready for tomorrow. And you knew I was going to cut your hair this afternoon, so why weren’t you here? Come on, let’s get it done now. I’ve had the chair and stuff set up waiting for you since lunchtime."

On following my mum through to the kitchen, my heart sank. Unlike many kids, whose haircuts were determined by the opening hours of the local barbers, I could be landed with a haircut anytime at all courtesy of my mother’s amateur barbering skills. In the middle of the kitchen floor surrounded by sheets of newspaper was the swivel chair from my dad’s study, a box of haircutting equipment and one of my mum’s royal blue nylon housecoat overalls draped over the chair back.
The well-rehearsed routine began as my mum picked up the overall, gave it a shake and held it out in front of me, and as I reluctantly put my arms into the sleeves, she fastened the buttons down the back, and I was soon sealed in and ready for the inevitable.

"Not too short…"

Mum cut across me. "You know the school rules. It’s got to be off your ears and collar, and that’s the way you’re having it. If you don’t like it, I suggest you ring the headmaster and tell him. Now sit up straight and keep still."

My mum wasn’t a bad barber and had become quite proficient at giving me my six-weekly trim, always leaving it over my ears, centre parted, just above my eyebrows and brushing my collar at the back. I had serious misgivings about the likely outcome this time though, as she wasn’t used to doing shorter cuts, and I feared the worst.

Unlike being at the barbers, I could never see what was going on during one of my home haircuts, as my mum never granted me the luxury of a mirror. Still, I could usually gauge what was going on by the amount of hair I could see falling onto the blue overall, which would invariably be little more than a few short tufts, and I would therefore relax secure in the knowledge that nothing drastic was happening. This time though, my heart almost stopped when I saw the first results of her onslaught. Following a series of sudden loud rasping snips across the back of my neck, a whole clump of hair slipped down the overall and landed in my lap. It must have been two or three inches long.

"Mum!!!! What on earth are you doing? I’m going to be bald!!!!"

"Shut up and sit still, Jonathan. We’ve hardly started yet. You’re going to have to get used to a decent short haircut for a change."

The cutting continued with gusto, the scissors snipped away relentlessly, and hair fell in massive chunks all over the blue overall, some of it then slipping down onto the newspaper-covered floor. I was dreading the outcome. After what seemed an eternity of snipping, going over and over the same areas again and again, my mum finally put the scissors down, seemingly satisfied with the results of her handiwork. After a thorough brushing down, the nylon overall was off, and I was presented with a dustpan and brush to clean up the carnage on the floor around the chair.

It was when I finally made it to the bathroom and at last had a chance to see in the mirror what was left of my hair that I got a bit of a surprise. Whilst it was certainly drastically shorter than it had been, it was nowhere near as short as James’ and surely would not qualify as a proper short back and sides. That was the good news, but the bad news was that it looked just it was: a home haircut, wonky and uneven and ending in a blunt heavy line across my forehead, around my ears and across the nape of my neck, a bit like a clumsily executed bowl cut. Mum was clearly good at trims, but this more substantial haircut attempt was just a mess. I went to bed that evening as worried about my haircut as I was about my first day at a new school.

Walking into school with James the next morning, the topic of conversation was all too predictable.

"What on earth have you done with your hair? Odds-on you’ll be seeing Arnold sometime today!!"

James seemed keen to capitalise on my misfortune, but I tried not to react and kept my head down trying to hide my embarrassment.

Once at school, the first morning consisted of all the usual confusing induction routines and for newcomers like me, a comprehensive guided tour of the labyrinthine premises. I was eventually assigned to a class, and it wasn’t long after I had taken my place among my new classmates that things took another sudden turn for the worst.

A loud knock on the door and a distinguished looking elderly gentleman with grey hair and dressed in a white coat entered the room, and immediately began scanning the rows of pupils as if performing some kind of inspection. Judging by his dress, I assumed he had medical connections of some sort, but all suddenly became horribly clear when I spotted a pair of scissors and a black comb sticking out of his top pocket. It didn’t take Mr Arnold long to zoom in on me, and fixing me a hard stare, he barked at me:

"Name, boy?!"

"Jonathan, sir," I replied, terror rising within me.

"Jonathan WHAT?" shouted Mr Arnold.

"Jonathan Hayes, sir," I timidly replied.

"Right then, Hayes, come with me." Addressing Mr Dixon, my form teacher, he added, "It seems it’s just Hayes in this class who has sadly misinterpreted the school’s haircut policy. He’ll be back with you as soon as I’ve dealt with him."

To sounds of hysterical laughter from my classmates accompanied by Mr Dixon’s attempts to calm the class, I got up and followed Mr Arnold out of the classroom, along a maze of corridors and eventually down into the basement, where next to the gym changing rooms was a little green door neatly labelled with a plaque reading ‘School Barber’.

"Right Hayes, in you go. Take off your blazer and get straight in the chair."

Mr Arnold’s little den was a proper barber shop in every detail. The room was dominated by a big chrome and leather barber chair mounted on a cream enamelled pedestal with a foot pedal, there was a shiny white basin with a polished mirror above it and a whole selection of haircutting scissors, combs, razors, and clippers all neatly arranged on the counter. The floor was a chequered black and white linoleum, there was a red vinyl waiting bench along one wall and at the far end a net-curtained window with a view of a brick wall beyond. An old-fashioned school-type cast iron radiator under the window completed the effect of this very traditional but absolutely immaculate little barber shop.

Stepping up onto the footrest, I eased myself cautiously into the chair and stared dejectedly at my reflection in the mirror. Mr Arnold, meanwhile, grabbed a huge pale blue nylon sheet from a hook on the wall, whipped it open and flung it over me. In no time I was shrouded from neck to foot, and as Mr Arnold tightly tucked it into the collar of my white school shirt, I realised that I was well beyond the point of no return. The chair was then raised up in a series of jolts, and my head shoved forward so all I could see was the blue cape and a bit of the floor.

"Right, young man. I don’t know what made you think that a haircut like this is acceptable in this school, but you’re here to get a proper regulation school haircut, and no arguing. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir, but my mum cut it and…."

"Enough. Now don’t speak unless I tell you to."

In my peripheral vision, I could just make out Mr Arnold fiddling around with a large pair of black electric hair clippers; it seemed he was fitting some kind of toothed attachment to the sharp end. That was not good news. The last time anyone had cut my hair with clippers was when I was about 7 years old, and I cried my eyes out as I ended up scalped.

Dragging the electric cable round behind the chair, Mr Arnold took up his position, shoved my head even further forward, holding it firmly in position with one hand whilst lining up the clippers with the other. To the sound of a loud ‘clack’, followed by a steady humming sound, I felt the clippers slowly making their way high up the back of my head. The humming sound changed to a growling crunching noise and with successive passes, the hungry beasts dug in and chewed their way through my hair. Unable to see what was happening, I could only guess what was going on, but was temporarily encouraged by a total lack of hair clippings on my blue cape. That encouragement didn’t last long though, as Mr Arnold lifted my head up again and positioned me staring straight ahead into the mirror before attacking the sides with the humming clippers. Folding each ear down in turn, he made sure that no single hair escaped his onslaught, and before too long, a liberal scattering of hair down the front of the cape bore testimony the damage that he had inflicted.

This was rapidly developing into the shortest haircut I had ever had, but it was soon evident that Mr Arnold was far from finished, as he spent the next few minutes whizzing the clippers over the comb, splaying yet more hair onto the cape as he blended the almost shaved sides into the slightly longer hair higher up on my head. After what seemed an eternity, the humming finally stopped as the clippers were switched off and the cut hair was brushed off my shoulders. Next, a white towel was draped around me and my hairline liberally daubed with white shaving cream. The next bit was the only enjoyable part of the whole ordeal, as Mr Arnold scraped around my neck and ears with a cut-throat razor, removing any hint of my sideboards in the process and making me tingle, sending shock waves of excitement throughout my entire body. The towel was then removed, my neck wiped clean, and Mr Arnold had just taken his scissors from the breast pocket of his overall when there was a knock at the door.

"Stay there and don’t move," instructed Mr Arnold as he went to answer the door. I couldn’t quite make out what was going on, but I was soon alone in the barber’s shop and decided this was an ideal opportunity to check out the damage so far. Slipping my hand out from under the cape, I quickly ran it up the back of my head, and straight away got an almighty shock. Lower down I could feel nothing but smooth skin gradually giving way to sharp bristles and eventually the longer hair on top. My heart skipped a beat, and as I turned my head sideways, I could see the same on each side â€" smooth skin and bristles. This man was nothing but a terrorist â€" nobody I had seen in school so far that morning had hair this short. I had done well so far to keep a lid on my emotions, but this was just too much, and my eyes began to well up and my lips tremble. I must have been left sitting in the barber's chair feeling pathetic and covered in the nylon sheet with half a haircut for upwards of ten minutes when Mr Arnold returned with two more boys in tow, each sporting a haircut that was clearly in breach of school rules.

"Right you two, blazers off and sit down there. I’ll do you when I’ve finished with him. No talking."

Great, I now had an audience. I flushed red with embarrassment as I looked in the mirror to see Mr Arnold’s latest pair of recruits sitting on the waiting bench staring at me with silly smirks on their faces, clearly relishing what they were about to witness.

I’m sure they weren’t disappointed, as out came the scissors again, and before I could blink, Mr Arnold went into full high-speed snipping mode. More and more chunks of hair fell past my eyes and cascaded to the cape, slipping down to build up in a mound between my knees. I had no idea that my mum had left me so much hair; after all she had hacked off a fair amount the day before. Meanwhile, Mr Arnold wasn’t hanging around, and the scissors snipped away loudly, leaving no more than a couple of inches on the top of my head. Apparently satisfied with what he had cut off the top, Mr Arnold then grabbed me by the chin, lifted my head and sliced even more off my already short fringe, leaving me with an angled line high up on my forehead.

At long last, Mr Arnold put the scissors back in his pocket. There was now far more hair on the cape than what remained on my head, and as I dismally surveyed the fine carpet of clippings over my shoulders and down my front, I figured that there was surely nothing left for him to cut by now. I continued to fight back the tears, determined to keep the entertainment for my audience on the waiting bench down to the bare minimum. Fortunately, it seemed that Mr Arnold was indeed done with the cutting, as he took a dollop of some grease-like substance from a jar and roughly massaged it into my hair before using his comb to fashion a sharp parting on the left and combing what was left into perfect shiny rows. Perfect for the 1950s that is. I was then given a thorough brushing down, the cape was untucked and whipped off me dumping a heap of what had been my hair onto the floor and the chair dropped back down to ground-level. As I stepped off the chair feeling somewhat shellshocked, the barber passed me a tissue and brushed the back of my shirt with a wooden clothes brush. I could already feel my neck itching with hairs that had obviously found their way down inside my shirt during the haircut; it was clearly going to be an uncomfortable afternoon in more ways than one.

"Right, Hayes, put your blazer on and off with you back to class. Next please."

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