Chapter 3
The Barber's Shop

It was considered right, proper and hygienic that men and boys should wear their hair short in those days before beatniks, hippies and dropouts. Hair was cut as frequently as fortnightly and no self-respecting businessman would allow his collar to be partly hidden by even a single wisp.

From the age of three or so we were taken to the nearest barber's shop for our obligatory short back and sides. I suspect that barbers then, like many other tradesmen learnt their craft in the army. And in the army there was only ever one way to do things - the army way. This led to the unimaginative lack of styles alleviated by the exuberance of moustaches and beards and the same approach to cutting using clippers, scissors and razor. Hence the need to move our heads so that the skin - even our young unsagging skin - was drawn tight over the underlying muscles and bones so that there were no folds to snag the clippers or the razor blades.

There were two leather-covered chairs with footstools in front of them. They faced the wash basins which in those days were used not so much for the hair before cutting as mixing the lather for the weekly visit of the blue and black collared workers who still went in on Friday evening or Saturday for their weekly shave, preferring the sharpness of the well-honed cut throat razor to the bluntness of an over-used safety razor at home. Behind the basins were mirrors in which customers could see the effect of the barber's labours. Small boys sat on a plank placed across the arms of the chairs so that they were raised to a convenient height for the barber.

One day I noticed a boy there. I had seen him before; for he lived in the house on the other side of the road - the downhill side of the junction. When his mother suggested to mine that I might like to play with him one day there began a friendship that was only ended when he was sent to the boarding school in the footsteps of his older brothers. I last heard of Andrew Edward Hunter Lee some years later when I revisited his mother and discovered that he was attending Heidleberg University. Since then his parents moved or died and I lost touch completely. His father once told us that friendship drives men to cross the world to see each other. I occasionally try to locate Andrew, but have been unable to so far.