A few months into my San Diego life I faced the inevitable. It was time to get a haircut and I was not about to travel 5,000 miles back to the UK for it. It was with a heavy heart that I realised I would have to find a new barber.
I remember my first ‘man’s’ haircut with mixed emotions – misery and shock. My father took me to the airforce barber in Germany and I was seduced by the term ‘crew-cut’. Back at the house there were tears – both mine and my mother’s. I spent the next few weeks being called ‘bog-brush’ at school as it grew back in an erratic and spiky mess.
But the experience taught me two things. Don’t cry in the barber’s chair – no matter how bad it looks at the time – it is not manly and you might end up with only half the head done. And also that my hair always grows back. I thank my paternal grandfather for the head of healthy, thickness that keeps my scalp warm and has never failed to sprout like a desert after the rain.
Since I was able to select my own barber I always chose one where there were no appointments and where conversation was kept to a minimum. English men of a certain age do not use the word hairdresser for someone whose skills with scissors, razor and comb are bought by the half hour. We pay for a formal ‘good morning’, a brief confirmation that ‘two up the back and sides and a short scissor cut on top’ is required and then absolute silence until the ordeal is over. Nobody said it was meant to be fun.
And once I find a barber who suits there is a shared bond of loyalty which is almost tribal. Fifteen years to the same shop in Leeds. Then several to my first in Norfolk until he had the nerve to retire at the age of 78 because he couldn’t stand up all day any more. My second in Norwich, opened at 6.30am on a Saturday for the market stall traders. I got to know him so well that I was in by 7am, out by 7.20am and would say as I left the shop ‘have a good day’.
I searched hard for a barber who matched up to these peerless standards. It’s always a bit of trial and error but I was pretty fazed by the Mexican lady who chatted away in Spanish throughout the process and said at the end, “You look so handsome”. I will be the judge of that Madam, were the words that formed in my head, but as I don’t speak Spanish I simply did what any English person would do and said ‘sorry’.
Yelp kept pointing me towards Thee Inglorious Blacktree Barberia. Five stars on all reviews to date but reviewers kept using words like ‘cool’ and saying that they were ‘stoked’. And then there was the name – I have always been slightly skittish about anything not called ‘Gentleman’s Barber Shop’. The fads for names like ‘Curl Up and Dye’, ‘Da Do, Do, Do’, and ‘Scissor Sisters’ – the last two might be song lyrics or groups for all I know – have passed me by.
I walked past the Barberia seven times and could not bring myself to cross the threshold. I was quite taken with the sign outside which read ‘If we can’t make you look good…..you’re ugly’. But it all looked so alien to me that I did not feel I had permission to enter.
Finally, I did the unthinkable and phoned to book an appointment. It was with great relief that I ended the call after three rings when nobody answered. But then my phone buzzed with a message – they had the audacity to want to know if I wanted an appointment. I had never spoken more than ten words at a time to a barber for the last forty years and here was one engaging with me electronically.
With my hair down over my collar I had little choice. Partly because one of my father’s favourite jokes when I was a teenager and grew my hair long was to stand next to me and, in his best parade ground voice, say, “Am I hurting you son?”. After a brief pause for hilarious, comic effect, he would continue, “I should be. I’m standing on your hair. GET IT CUT.”
Barberia is unlike any place I have ever had my hair cut before. When I walk in they ask me if I want a beer, a shot or a water. Even more startling is that they cut your hair with the chair facing away from the mirror. It’s feels strangely dangerous and exciting. Not that I would have ever stopped a barber mid-cut, even if he was scalping me. It’s just that I have become very used to seeing myself shorn whilst avoiding all eye contact with the person doing the shearing.
Instead we all watch a TV that is tuned to some free to air channel. This tends to mean cheap, repetitive programming. First time round I saw a programme about the San Diego state prison with no uplifting endings. And I found myself exchanging social commentary about the differences between the UK and the US with the ensemble of barbers and clients. Last time it was a programme about sharks with sub-titles.
And the sub-titles were necessary because from the start to the last the sound system played AC/DC so loud that my ears might have bled. All the while my barber was trying to persuade me to have my nose and ears waxed. I suspect he was trying to tell me that after a certain age that was necessary to become handsome. And he had a way of talking that cut through Angus Young, Brian Johnson, Bon Scott et al doing their very best to bring on premature deafness.
Eventually you do get turned around to face the mirror and see what has been done. It is a magnificent bit of theatre which is done with panache and pride. And I have to say that on every occasion so far it has been the best haircut I have ever had. So much so that I have even taken the advice to have ‘a little product’ in my hair. Another first for me as I adjust to the new world.