My Story: The Final Frontier by Stopfordian Stationer

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They say that the camera never lies. Or they used to say that in the days before photos were so easily manipulated and faked. That was still the case just after the turn of the Millennium. I still had the one back and sides, two on top cut and loved the look and feel of it plus the fact that there was no messing to do with it and all I had to do to keep it sharp was get it cut regularly, which obviously wasn’t an issue at all. I had my own car by now so I could go further afield to check out different barbershops to look if I wanted to give them a go and I had tried plenty. The company I worked for had close ties with a university so that meant we would get students coming in and doing summer placements for a few weeks, some of them from overseas. This particular year we had had a lad from Italy with us for a couple of months. On his last day a group of us went out with him at lunchtime to get something to eat and reminisce about his time and thank him. The food was good and we had a nice time and gave him a decent send off. Somebody had a camera and was snapping a few photos as a reminder. At some point, probably not too long afterwards, whoever took the photos stuck some of them up on the noticeboard in the kitchen at work. I had a quick glance and noticed who was in them and where everyone was and saw that Marco, one of my work colleagues had his back to the camera. I knew it was him as the hair on the top of his head had mainly thinned to the point there was not much left. It was then that I looked in more detail and came to a sudden realisation based on hair colour and what the person was wearing. It wasn’t Marco, it was me. Oh . . .

Since I kept my hair very short anyway I hadn’t really thought about balding. I had been aware when I felt at the crown when my hair was at its longest just before getting it cut that it might have started to thin a bit but until I saw that photo I had no idea that it was going to the extent that it clearly was. I was in my late twenties at the time and a fair bit down the road to full MPB so the hair gods had not been particularly kind to me in that respect but it could have been worse and I was fortunate to be able to take a philosophical view as I know some men struggle terribly with hair loss, especially at a relatively young age. I’m never sure about the genetics of how this happens, and if it is influenced by your father or grandfathers or whoever. I wasn’t fortunate enough to know either of my grandfathers as both died well before I was born so can’t comment on that. I do know that my dad was getting on for 90 when he passed away and still had a full head of hair. Out of the three of us, Dominic and I both have MPB whereas Alex has not thinned at all. If there would be one of us to get away with it, it was always going to be Alex! I took the view then, and still do now, that there was no rhyme or reason to it so you’ve just got to get on and play the hand you are dealt.

I had always promised myself that if my hair started thinning or falling out I would just get it all shaved off rather than agonising or trying to hide it or anything. The cut I had chosen anyway meant I was most of the way there already so there was only one logical conclusion I could reach after seeing the evidence with my own eyes. "Right," I thought. "Next trip to the barber’s it’s a one all over for you, matey." That came a couple of weeks later and I was more nervous about it on the day than I thought I would be. I had had plenty of clipper cuts by now but I knew that once I asked for a number one it would really be going right down to the wood, much more so than it ever had before.

I had checked out a few shops and drove round for a bit to see if there were any queues knocking about in any of them or if there would be likely to be anything interesting to watch anywhere but much to my disappointment there seemed to be nothing doing. Time was getting on and I was getting fed up by now and just wanted to get in somewhere and get it done. There was a shop not too far away that I had not been to before so I thought I might as well go there and check it out so that would at least be something a bit different. I managed to park nearby and walked in. There was nobody in the waiting area and just one customer in the chair being done so I knew I wouldn’t be waiting long. Sure enough I was called up after a few minutes and walked up and got in the chair. The barber caped me up and asked me what I wanted. There was no hesitation or uncertainty as I knew what had to be done. ‘One all over please,’ I replied. That was the first time I had ever asked for an all over haircut with the same number.

There was no preamble this time, no asking me if I was sure although from the length of the hair I was asking the guy to cut, I suppose it was pretty clear I was beyond that stage He simply said, ‘OK, coming up,’ and reached for the clippers. He came straight down the middle of the top and, as expected, there was nothing visible left behind. As he carried on going over the top, I was conscious of the clippers being really close to my scalp and for the first time got a real idea of the sharpness of them. He finished the back and sides and went over and over and I was left properly shaven headed with only the slightest hint of stubble. It was the first time I looked in the mirror and thought of myself as a bald man. I carried on like that afterwards, getting it cut every few weeks. Nobody commented, even though it was noticeably shorter. I guess everybody just assumed I had decided to go a step further since they were already used to seeing me with really short hair. I let it get a bit longer for Dominic’s wedding the year after but not that much. The next move after that was to get the one tapered down to nought at the back and sides and I started looking out for barbers that also used straight razors and were willing to lather and razor shave further up the sides and back rather than just using it around the very edges. There were not as many barbers willing to do that in those days as there are now and I had one barber flat out refuse to use one on me at all. Needless to say there were no more visits to that particular shop after that.

I did not actively consider going even shorter and when it happened it was more or less on impulse. I remember it was a cold day in January so it was a strange time to do it but after waiting for a bit, when I got in the chair I just said ‘Nought all over’ and that was it. I really could feel the sharp blades even more now and the end result was more or less smooth. I hadn’t expected there to be so big a difference but there was and it did provoke a few comments this time but I was past being bothered by then. It was now the shorter the better as far as I was concerned. Wherever I went, my instructions became "All off, short as you can," and then see what happened. Sometimes it meant edgers all over, sometimes it was finished with a foil shaver and there were a couple of places that used Wahl balding clippers. They really are incredibly sharp. I went a few times to a shop that was a bit further away than I would normally go because I saw a review saying the barber there used Oster clippers. I had seen countless stories from the USA talking about Osters but it was very rare to find them used in the UK and I wanted to experience them for myself. For those who have not had the pleasure, I can confirm that the five zero blade leaves very little behind! Nobody who doesn’t know about these things would ever imagine that there could be so much variation to what they would simply think of as a "shaved head".

Having got this far, I only had one step left now. My first full razor headshave was in a shop I liked that was run by an Italian family, the barbers were the father and two sons. I had seen them using straight razors and thought I might be able to get my head completely shaved there at some point if I wanted it. I remember the day in question was at the beginning of August, it was boiling hot and there was a long queue. People seemed to be inspired by the warm weather and the hair was flying everywhere, several people left after leaving the vast majority of what they had on the floor. When it was my turn, I got the father and I had made my mind up by now. ‘Can you razor it please?’ I asked. He started by taking what I had right down with the clippers and I was then lathered up all over my head for the first time. I always think that is the best bit of having your head razor shaved. He took his time and scraped away with small strokes of the razor, always holding my scalp taut between his finger and thumb as he went. Once that was done, he lathered me up again and did it a second time. After that I got a few razor shaves or just got the shortest clipper cut I could, depending on where I went on any given day.

About five years ago, I settled on one shop rather than going to different places. A couple of the barbers there did razor headshaves and they are a nice bunch of people so it is a good place to go and chat as well as getting a good haircut. Up to the pandemic I had got into a routine of going every Saturday, at first to get my head razor shaved and then to get it done all over with foils, which is now my go to cut and I find is more or less the same as a razor shave although I know some purists will disagree with me on that! I never got into the same habit again afterwards and I usually go every two to three weeks now. During the pandemic I bought some clippers from Amazon and cut my own hair three times when I got to the stage where I couldn’t stand how long it was any more. I could easily cut my own hair now and save the money but I found it fiddly to do and in any case I like going to the shop and having the interactions with the different barbers. Basically I enjoy going to the barbers to get my hair cut so I don’t see any reason to stop doing that.

So that is my story to date, the forty year journey from the little boy with the ugly and untidy mop who hated getting it cut to having the shaved head, going via having the clippers for the first time, short back and sides, crew cut and whatever other variations are in there. I do wish I had been made to have short hair when I was little but the fact I wasn’t is a reflection that my parents cared that I was sensitive about my ears and wouldn’t impose something on me that I said I didn’t want and that is to their credit. I have enjoyed writing all this down so it is all out there now. If anyone else feels inclined to do the same with their own experience, I will look forward to reading them too.

And as one final footnote, I was not too far from Richard’s shop last week and decided to wander past to see if it was still there. Not only is the shop still there but I could see through the window that Richard is still working there as well. Good to see the man who started me off on the road to short hair is still going strong.

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