Haircut 100 (Saturday 02/12/2017)
Alex had his first proper hair cut today.
He's four and a half.
Before today he had only experienced two official haircuts; one in a wonky rocket chair and the other in a slightly cramped plastic sports car. Before that Grandma wielded the shears and at various stages the plucky young chap sported a variety of looks including the curtain fringe, the unforgivingly truncated cow lick, the bed head and a splendid junior mullet. He has carried them all off with a degree of indifference but it won't be long before he is teasing his hair into what ever passes for fashion at the time.
But today marks a first; Father and son having their hair cut together in a proper barber shop.
I have had two barbers in the last twenty-five years. The first was Aldo, a chain smoking Italian on Regent Street in Clifton. He was old and sallow when I first walked through his door in 1995 and he still seemed to be snipping away until very recently when his yellowing salon was reborn as something more millennial.
I never had a conversation with him in all my visits despite priding myself on being able to coax something from the most monosyllabic. When I moved across town, I remained faithful to Aldo for a while but eventually the fug became too much.
I migrated to the Arches Barber shop on Gloucester Rd, run then, as it is now by two Cypriot brothers, who differed from Aldo by the quality of both the air and the conversation. Over the years I must have clocked up my century with their clippers and my request has gone full circle. Short back and sides was my Dad's standard prescription and I inherited his hairstyle just as surely as his hair. Over the years my pre-chop directions to the barber have included every permutation of the words long, short, shave, taper, grade, sideburns and fringe. Finally, I have returned to where I first began and as a regular, I now wave one hand in the general direction of my head whilst muttering something vague which somehow translates into precise instructions.
A hundred times conversation has broached the family in Cyprus, the land lost to Turkish occupation or the youth of today. Just recently the shop had the first make over that I remember. Out went the brylcreemed head shots, replaced by a New York Taxi montage.
In a right of passage, I brought Alex for a trim here, safe in the knowledge that I have rigorously road tested their offering, having never once contracted an unpleasant scalp complaint or had my ear trimmed in a moment of distraction. The pressing reason was that Alex has been parting the curtains periodically to ask for their removal.
I have tried to get him into the chair several times before. Alex has always been game but no one seemed willing to take my money. Apparently, the old adage, 'never work with children or animals' still holds good.
Finally, as a valued customer with a comprehensive dossier of small talk and a son increasingly lost behind the hair line I felt that it was time to cash in my unused loyalty points. I enquired again in a tone that brooked no defiance and from somewhere in the back a plank was produced. Before long Alex was sitting high above his normal vantage point, surveying the cutting room floor.
I hovered while the scissors flashed, ready to steady the first signs of a wobble that never came. He giggled as the clippers tickled and gazed in awe as in five minutes the barber added three years to him. Gone was the fringe heavy mop top and revealed was the increasing angularity of his maturing features. He arrived as an overgrown toddler and left as a six year old in waiting.
The occupant of the adjoining chair was having his first haircut too. He was 25.
When it was over, the process may have brought a hairy tickle to Alex's throat but it brought a lump to mine.
He's four and a half.
Before today he had only experienced two official haircuts; one in a wonky rocket chair and the other in a slightly cramped plastic sports car. Before that Grandma wielded the shears and at various stages the plucky young chap sported a variety of looks including the curtain fringe, the unforgivingly truncated cow lick, the bed head and a splendid junior mullet. He has carried them all off with a degree of indifference but it won't be long before he is teasing his hair into what ever passes for fashion at the time.
But today marks a first; Father and son having their hair cut together in a proper barber shop.
I have had two barbers in the last twenty-five years. The first was Aldo, a chain smoking Italian on Regent Street in Clifton. He was old and sallow when I first walked through his door in 1995 and he still seemed to be snipping away until very recently when his yellowing salon was reborn as something more millennial.
I never had a conversation with him in all my visits despite priding myself on being able to coax something from the most monosyllabic. When I moved across town, I remained faithful to Aldo for a while but eventually the fug became too much.
I migrated to the Arches Barber shop on Gloucester Rd, run then, as it is now by two Cypriot brothers, who differed from Aldo by the quality of both the air and the conversation. Over the years I must have clocked up my century with their clippers and my request has gone full circle. Short back and sides was my Dad's standard prescription and I inherited his hairstyle just as surely as his hair. Over the years my pre-chop directions to the barber have included every permutation of the words long, short, shave, taper, grade, sideburns and fringe. Finally, I have returned to where I first began and as a regular, I now wave one hand in the general direction of my head whilst muttering something vague which somehow translates into precise instructions.
A hundred times conversation has broached the family in Cyprus, the land lost to Turkish occupation or the youth of today. Just recently the shop had the first make over that I remember. Out went the brylcreemed head shots, replaced by a New York Taxi montage.
In a right of passage, I brought Alex for a trim here, safe in the knowledge that I have rigorously road tested their offering, having never once contracted an unpleasant scalp complaint or had my ear trimmed in a moment of distraction. The pressing reason was that Alex has been parting the curtains periodically to ask for their removal.
I have tried to get him into the chair several times before. Alex has always been game but no one seemed willing to take my money. Apparently, the old adage, 'never work with children or animals' still holds good.
Finally, as a valued customer with a comprehensive dossier of small talk and a son increasingly lost behind the hair line I felt that it was time to cash in my unused loyalty points. I enquired again in a tone that brooked no defiance and from somewhere in the back a plank was produced. Before long Alex was sitting high above his normal vantage point, surveying the cutting room floor.
I hovered while the scissors flashed, ready to steady the first signs of a wobble that never came. He giggled as the clippers tickled and gazed in awe as in five minutes the barber added three years to him. Gone was the fringe heavy mop top and revealed was the increasing angularity of his maturing features. He arrived as an overgrown toddler and left as a six year old in waiting.
The occupant of the adjoining chair was having his first haircut too. He was 25.
When it was over, the process may have brought a hairy tickle to Alex's throat but it brought a lump to mine.
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