Today, Oscar is booked in for his first ever hair cut. It is getting out of hand and it even annoys him sometimes and so his parents have arranged for a potentially traumatic event.
Until I escaped home, I was sent every two weeks, to have my hair cut, and in those days it was for a short back and sides. I can still smell the barbers shop and have vivid memories of sitting for what seemed hours, waiting for my turn. Every adult customer, when shorn, was asked the same question before they left. "Anything for the weekend sir?" and now and then, discrete exchanges would take place as condoms, not drugs, were traded.
The hair once scarily shortened was plastered with brylcream or something similar, and half a crown was handed over. The outside air always felt so cold and my scalp felt like sandpaper, my ears protruding like a small pair of wings. It wasn't until teenage years that I dared to rebel and insist that the barber took less off and made some attempt to create a style.
Leaving home was liberating in so many ways and I stopped visiting hairdressers altogether. I guess that someone must have trimmed it from time to time but I have no real recollection of that and by the time I started teaching, my hair was long and blonde. It stayed that way until it started to grey.
Now there is a lot less for a hairdresser to do and I am back to regular attendance, though not every two weeks. The half crown bill has multiplied a hundred times and more and i am pretty sure that condoms are no longer available.
Until I escaped home, I was sent every two weeks, to have my hair cut, and in those days it was for a short back and sides. I can still smell the barbers shop and have vivid memories of sitting for what seemed hours, waiting for my turn. Every adult customer, when shorn, was asked the same question before they left. "Anything for the weekend sir?" and now and then, discrete exchanges would take place as condoms, not drugs, were traded.
The hair once scarily shortened was plastered with brylcream or something similar, and half a crown was handed over. The outside air always felt so cold and my scalp felt like sandpaper, my ears protruding like a small pair of wings. It wasn't until teenage years that I dared to rebel and insist that the barber took less off and made some attempt to create a style.
Leaving home was liberating in so many ways and I stopped visiting hairdressers altogether. I guess that someone must have trimmed it from time to time but I have no real recollection of that and by the time I started teaching, my hair was long and blonde. It stayed that way until it started to grey.
Now there is a lot less for a hairdresser to do and I am back to regular attendance, though not every two weeks. The half crown bill has multiplied a hundred times and more and i am pretty sure that condoms are no longer available.
No comments:
Post a Comment