Gervase Phinn: At the cutting edge

On Saturday mornings there would be a row of men and glum little boys waiting for their haircuts. Reg, the barber, was a small bald-headed man with a fleshy face, red nose the shape of a turnip and fat white hands. He was irritatingly jaunty and garrulous and what was more annoying was that he was inordinately slow. It wasn't that he spent a long time on the job in hand – namely cutting people's hair – it was because he never stopped talking.

There were long pauses between cutting the hair or shaving a customer when he would discuss national and local events. The barber's was an exclusively masculine world where the topics of conversation centred largely around football and work. My father was first in the chair, this large swivelling throne of a thing with simulated brown leather covering and adjustable foot rest and he remained there while Reg snipped a bit off the back and trimmed the wisps of hair that were combed across his otherwise bald pate. He then scraped the back of his neck with a cut throat razor, trimmed the moustache and eyebrows and any stray hairs in the ears.

"Now then, young falla-mi-lad," the barber would say when it came to my turn, "let's be having you."

He placed a plank across the arms of the chair, lifted me on to it, wrapped a large sheet around me which smelt of shaving soap and a sickly sweet cologne and asked, "How do you want it?" Before I could tell him I just wanted a trim or "a tidy-up", he turned to my father and asked, "Short back and sides and good bit off t'top?"

"That's fine," said Dad.

"Could I have it a bit longer this time?" I would ask plaintively. I hated going to school on the Monday with a head like a coconut and everyone asking the same inane question: " 'Ave you 'ad your 'air cut?"

"No problem, young falla-mi-lad," Reg would say, but then proceed to scalp me.

I just wanted this prolonged and painful experience to be over as soon as possible so when he started on the interrogation I would answer the questions he fired at me in monosyllables.

"How's school then?" he asked.

"OK."

"Behaving yourself, are you?"

"Yes."

"Do you play football?"

"No."

"Cricketer then, are you?"

"No."

"What do you play?'"

"Nothing."

"Been in holiday?"

"No."

"You're a right little chatterbox you, aren't you?"

"No."

Sometimes he would ask an embarrassing question with a sort of snigger, such as, "Got a girlfriend yet, then?" I wouldn't even deign to answer and shake my head. The only occasion I said anything above the one word answer was when I saw him reach for the electric clippers which buzzed like a frantic bee.

I would then mention the spot on the back of my neck, touching it with my finger to indicate the location and asked him to be careful. My request came to nothing for invariably he would slice off the top of the spot whistling as he did so. I would yelp and wonder if he had done it on purpose because I was less than friendly when he interrogated me. Then the barber would reach for a strand of cotton wool, dip it into some liquid and press it on my neck. The stinging sensation was indescribable and there would be a sharp intake of my breath. This was followed by some word of wisdom from Sweeny Todd such as, "Wait 'til you shaving young falla-mi-lad, you'll get used to a few cuts." This produced a few laughs from the customers which made me colour up with anger and embarrassment. The final part of the ordeal was to have talcum powder squirted on my neck, followed by a vigorous brushing down.

On one occasion, a teddy boy was sitting on the bench when we entered the shop. He was leaning back casually, legs apart, chewing.

The other customers stared at him as if he were an exotic specimen in a museum case but he was unconcerned. The style of hair and dress which he affected said to the customers he was an idler, a troublemaker, a ne'er-do-well. But I was irresistibly drawn towards this character whose sophistication elevated him above the conventional teenagers of the time.

I was full of admiration for someone who had the courage to walk around the town in his powder blue suit, string tie, crepe soled shoes, yellow socks and with this wonderful coiffure. He sported a hairdo that was a work of art. His shiny black, heavily Brilliantined hair was slicked back on both sides, rose from his forehead in one smooth wave and tapered at the nape of his neck.

I knew there was no way that Reg was going to give him "a short back and sides" and "a good bit of t'top". When he asked the barber to be careful of his DA and leave his sideburns alone, being an inquisitive child and seeing Reg's lips purse with disapproval, I asked my father later what was a DA but he was evasive. It was a friend at school who told me it stood for "duck's arse" – the shape of his hair at the back.

My father, I recall, equivocated on another occasion. As he paid the bill, the barber, would invariably ask the question, always the same question, to which my father always shook his head. The barber spoke in a sort of sly, whispery voice, the sort spies used in the radio plays. I was intrigued.

"Something for the weekend, sir?" he enquired.

I asked my father what it meant as we left the shop one Saturday. He reddened and dismissed my enquiry. "Something that you don't need to know about," he told me, "and don't go asking your mother."

This made it really mysterious.

Extract from Gervase Phinn's new memoir, Road to the Dales: the story of a Yorkshire lad. Michael Joseph, 18.99. To order a copy from the Yorkshire Post Bookshop, call free on 0800 0153232 or go online at www.yorkshirepost bookshop.co.uk. P&P is 2.75.

YP MAG 10/4/10