There were a number of barbers around Newington Green, there was Mr Eckert, opposite Newington Green Primary School on Matthias Road, and Jack’s at the Newington Green end of Green Lanes. There was another one up towards the Petherton Road junction with Green Lanes, on the east side. And more that I don’t remember.
Mr Eckert, known of course as Mr Haircut, was a refugee from Nazi Germany, still with a strong accent. A small, balding man, serious and precise. In the back of his shop, when he was not trimming men’s hair, he made dolls houses. Only specially-empathetic customers such as my dad were allowed to be shown the results of his work, my dad was astonished when Eckert first took him through to see them, so detailed and carefully crafted were they.
In the late 50s, Mr Eckert retired, and his shop was taken over by Joe Tomassi, who was in character the exact opposite: voluble, expansive, and effusive, and Italian, he became very popular.
Joe and his wife Babs (Barbara) lived in Ferntower Road and had a much doted-on daughter, who when she was in her late teens she was killed in a car crash when out with friends – no seat belts in them days. Joe went to pieces, lost all interest in his shop, became seriously depressed, and died no more than two years later. Babs bought a two-storey house in Leconfield Road and had a lodger living on the first floor to help her find the money for bills, a loner who kept himself very much to himself. Babs lived on until her late eighties, sad, slight and silent, you never saw her smile.
Meanwhile, back in the 50s, my uncle Albert returned home from Germany where he had been serving in the army. He didn’t bother much with haircuts for a while, until his parents with whom he was staying, and various relatives, said very firmly, ‘It’s time you got a haircut, Albert, go and see old Eckert, he’ll soon sort you out’.
But old Eckert didn’t, he refused, he said I’m not cutting your hair, I don’t cut long hair.
Albert returned home. ‘I have been to the barber who says he will not cut my hair unless it does not need cutting’, he intoned.
How they all laughed, not at Eckert but at Albert, they thought the joke was on him for trying to upset the prescribed ways, and failing.
At length Albert went to Jack’s, and Jack cut his hair without a murmur, though the family thought he wasn’t going to. Jack was a large and rough-looking man, his shop always seemed to be full of cigarette smoke from customers waiting on the line of chairs for their turn. By contrast, if I remember correctly, smoking was forbidden in Mr Eckert’s salon.
To the barber’s once a fortnight, and wait on the chairs that lined the wall for your turn. That’s maybe half an hour every other week. Thirteen hours per year, it’s like losing a day of your life every year, just dealing with your short back and sides. But people didn’t do such sums, in them days, or if they did, they’d have been like Albert – a troublemaker!
Dave
Comment from Roj: ‘There was a barber I used to go when I was a teenage spotty git. I think he was a Turkish Cypriot and his tiny shop was on the corner of Poets and Ferntower Roads. He would cut me hair then, after asking me, he would meticulously squeeze out all the spots on my neck. Yeah, yuk, I hear you say “I don’t wish to know that – kindly leave the stage!” Nice bloke though.’
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