Going to the barber

We used to have barbers. Remember that? They were strictly for blokes. The barber at the Remuera shopping village – this is in the 1940s -- had all manner of stuff going on. Cutting blokes’ hair was part of it. He sold cigarettes, cigars, tobacco, pipes, cigarette papers, matches, walking sticks... and, I now realise, c-nd-ms. I got sent up there with 1/- or maybe 1/6d for a haircut whenever my mother thought I was starting to look terrible.

The shop had a sign which said, “We post to Tasmania.” Well, we all did if we wanted to. But that was code for Tatts. Gambling was illegal in NZ except for the government-sponsored Art Union, but Tattersalls operated in Australia. People bought Tatts tickets in hushed tones at the barber’s.

The place also seemed to have a lot to do with horse racing. The senior blokes hanging around knew everything, all had copies of Best Bets in their pockets, and the walls were replete with pictures of horses and jockeys. The barber took bets, which was seriously illegal. A 9-penny haircut kid sitting in the chair just had to wait, frequently, while these things were fixed up.

No one had ever heard of styling. The only kind of cut was off. The Remuera barber ran his fingers through my hair, hard against my scalp, and amputated everything above them. It’s actually not a bad style, and all the boys at the local primary schools looked the same.

The Warkworth hairdresser in 2010 differs from this in certain important respects. First, she is seriously female. There is no nonsense about suspect activities. Just when I have come to the time of life when I have an alarming paucity of hair left, she talks to me about styling. Styling...? I simply don’t want it in my eyes or ears any more. Off remains the stylistic criterion.

Blokes still turn up, however, with that old blokey awareness of who’s first, who’s next... Girls would never do it that way. The hairdresser, Julie, conducts an incessant banter with everyone within earshot. She knows just how to engage each bloke, more or less, although she does have some difficulties with me.

Norman Rockwell has a wonderful painting of Shuffleton’s Barber Shop (Saturday Evening Post, April 29, 1950). The shop’s actually empty and in semi darkness. But light is streaming through from the back room, and you can just see three blokes playing violin, flute and cello. Nothing like that in Remuera, in my memory. But at Shuffleton’s in the gloom of the barber’s shop the coal fire still glows, the hair is swept up from the floor and the large broom rests against the wall. Life is all as it should be. There is a large poster of the American flag.