I’ve never liked going to the barbers. My dread of barber shops goes back to my early childhood. One of my clearest memories when about eight or nine years old was being taken to the barber by my mother and being horrified by the outcome. I was sure that I would be teased mercilessly by the children at school, and although I cannot remember whether this was so or not, I think it likely.
I’ve always supposed that this hatred of having one’s hair cut is common in children. After all, hair cutting is a like a form of dismemberment, a grotesque violation of one’s body. I suspect that the experience may be different for girls.
Nowadays I tend to visit a local hairdressers (I still prefer the term ‘barbers’*) run by a middle aged Cypriot couple. My heart falls slightly if I end up being served by the female member of the couple. Not that she’s unpleasant you understand, but she will try to engage me in conversation. I do not go to the barber’s for conversation. When will she understand that? I reply to her efforts at chit-chat with grunts or curt replies to make it clear that I really do not want to converse whilst having my hair cut. To be fair, I think she recognises me now and doesn’t even bother any more!
In an attempt to raise money for the prostate cancer charity I decided to shave off my entire beard during November. Many members of staff at work have responded and it looks likely that I may raise over £100 in sponsor money. This is part of a worldwide charity raising focus during November called ‘Movember’ (check out their website here – or donate via my sponsorship page here) and although not that well known in this country (it originates from Australia where ‘mo’ is slang for moustache) it is well supported internationally.
My beard has been a constant companion to me for – well I’m not too sure as I started growing my beard during my first teaching post. Let’s just say that it is well over a quarter of a century old! Sue has always resisted any attempt on my part to shave my face, but having taken the moral high ground for charity, I made it impossible for her not to agree, which she did so with some reluctance.
The deed was done at the barbers mentioned above and I made sure that I employed the services of the husband this time. I had always intended that such a momentous occasion was deserving of a ‘hot towel wet shave’ advertised with pride in the barber shop window. I had never had a ‘hot towel wet shave’ and was looking forward to the experience, although with some trepidation as to the state of shock that my facial skin would experience when denuded of its hairy friend. Leading up to this event I had grown my beard quite long (which I always find annoying – although I have nearly always had a beard I like to keep it short) and felt a shave with a blade rather than an electric razor would be better – it was also in part because I had embarrassing visions of my stubbly hairs breaking the barber’s best electric razor – no doubt a family heirloom handed down from generation to generation of barbers.
One of the main reasons I try my best to avoid having my hair cut is that it involves staring at myself in the mirror. I tend to avoid mirrors so that I can continue to fantasise that I am in my late twenties or early thirties. But the mirror heartlessly reveals all! And the barber’s mirror is so small discreet affair either – the kind of mirror that you might be able to creep up to and have a peek, or casually avoid. No – the barber’s is a blooming great mirror, the size of the whole wall. I’m forced to stare at my reflection like some sort of medieval torture. I often don’t recognise the face in the mirror at all and enter into a form of deep denial. But however hard I look I cannot help but see time scrawl with its thick grey crayon all over my face. I look like my dad.
After a quick trim of the hair on top of my head, came the ceremony of the hot towel to deal with the hair on the front of my head. After setting the chair back at a most alarming angle the barber disappeared for a few minutes into the nether regions of the shop to reappear shortly with a steaming bowl of hot towels and various other bits of apparatus which I could not see well from the unnatural angle I was forced to adopt. After faffing about with this, that and the other for a while, he wiped my face thoroughly with the hot towels, whose heat came as a surprising shock. Then the lathering up – which was a strangely relaxing almost sensual experience.
By this time the barber’s shop was filling up. When I first arrived there was just one other customer, a dark skinned, thin and gaunt lady being ‘dealt with’ (with much chatter and general meaningless conversation) by the wife, but now there were two other men waiting (one by the door as all the chairs were in use!) plus what I took to be a mother with her teenage son. As the barber started to scrape away with his blade I thought it somehow inappropriate that they should be witnesses to this intimate event. I suppose hair cutting must be one of the oldest trades there is. I’ve no doubt that there were barbers in caves cutting hair with flint blades millennia ago. Hair cutting seems just a step up from flea picking.
I suddenly thought that there really should be some music to go with this event to make it into a real pukka ceremony, but I couldn’t think what music might be appropriate. Perhaps the 1812 overture?
The barber worked away, pulling and tugging my skin to gain purchase on the reluctant hairs, some of which felt very definitely that they did not wish to be separated from their beloved home on my face. But none could stand against the onslaught of the barber’s knife and soon the deed was done, the chair was raised back into it upright position and I was left to gaze in wonder at my new countenance, as if reborn again.
And the effect? Well rather disappointing really. I looked very similar to how I look when I have cut my beard short in the past. The notion that somehow I would look otherwise suddenly struck me as strange foolishness. Perhaps I had hoped that the barber’s knife, as well as cutting my facial fuzz would have sliced off at least a few years. But it was not to be.
* Of course barbers in the past offered a much wider range of service including dentistry, simple surgery and bloodletting. The traditional barber’s pole is often thought to refer to the blooded white bandages with which barbers would advertise their therapeutic services!
