After just over a year I have finally been back to my hairdresser’s in Manchester city centre. It’s very odd to be greeted by your regular stylist as if you are an old friend but that’s the way it is. The hairdresser is perhaps the last “family retainer”! I was about to comment that men perhaps don’t have the same relationship with their barber but in fact that’s not really true.
Over the years that we have been going to Vigo, Phil got into the habit of having his hair cut by an old traditional barber down by port. The first time he cut Phil’s hair I was scared stiff as he got out a cut-throat razor to work on some parts of it. He would also trim Phil’s eyebrows. Over about ten years Phil became a regular customer, greeted with apparent pleasure every time he visited the shop. They would have long conversations about the state of the world, occasionally enthusiasm for the topic making the barber’s local accent just a little incomprehensible.
The last time we were there, just before the pandemic struck, we went down to the port, only to find the barber’s shut. Maybe it was the wrong day of the week, we thought, or the wrong time of day. Was the old barber having a long lunch? But over the week the shop remained shut and we could only assume, indeed, had to accept that the old man had finally hung up his razor-sharpening strop and retired, and that his son did not want to continue. It was also possible that he had been priced out of the premises with rents for the “bajos”, the ground floor shops, going up. Whatever the reason, Phil did not get his haircut. And it felt a little like the end of an era.
For my visit today I was sent a set of instructions about arriving on time, wearing a mask, being prepared to wait outside the shop in the arcade while things were prepared, and so on and so on. My temperature was taken on arrival. My hands were sanitised. My coat and handbag were put in a large plastic bag beside my chair, rather than hung up in the cupboard. The hairdresser was wrapped in PPE. There were no magazines - think of all the germs to be transmitted as several customers read the magazines in turn!! Good job I had a book in my bag!
Customers had to wear a mask throughout, apart from when they had a cup of coffee, served in a paper cup instead of a china cup! And each stylist could only have one customer at a time, whereas in the past they would juggle two or even three at a time, moving from customer to customer. Work stations have to be cleaned between customers. My stylist says she prefers this new way of working but the management is not happy as it reduces the money coming into the business.
A possibly unexpected consequence of this new way of working in that the salon has only one junior in training, whereas in the past they would have four or five. Now the stylists themselves do the shampooing and rinsing that the juniors used to do. So the salon employs fewer juniors and some have left as they are not getting much training. In fact they do more cleaning and sweeping than anything else and social distancing means they cannot stand too close to an experienced stylist observing their technique. As my stylist commented, the juniors are not having contact with customers, not learning to chat politely and effectively, a skill as important as shampooing, giving head massages and combing through tangled, just-washed hair. So the “supply” of future stylists is reduced.
Are other professions suffering similar effects of the weird times we live in? Will we come out at the other end of the tunnel?
Having arrived in Manchester in plenty of time for my appointment, I took advantage of the opportunity to stroll around before it got too busy. There are sad gaps in the shopping streets: Paperchase, Oasis, Kath Kidston and others all closed forever. Not essential shops, of course, but it makes for a rather dismal scene when empty window displays are there every so far along the streets.
Personally I’ll miss Paperchase, the stationers. It has long been one of our favourite places when I’ve been on shopping trips with my daughter. Not that we always needed stationery but we always enjoyed wandering around the shop, looking at what strange and amusing items they had added, stocking up on reduced-price Christmas cards early in the New Year and birthday cards whenever we saw something appealingly appropriate for friends and family members. Not to mention adding to our collection of notebooks. All the female members of the family, right down to the younger granddaughters, appreciate a good small notebook!
W. H. Smith just cannot fill that space. It’s just not quirky and individual enough. Altogether too corporate money-making! Too businesslike! What are we going to do?
Life goes on. Stay safe and well, everyone!
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