More Than Military!

STRICT REGIME:

I have already mentioned my Father was an Army Sergeant and had been when he met my Mother. He remained in the Army until the mid 1970's when he started working for the Prison Service.
My Father's idea of bringing up two boys was to run each day as if his home were an army camp where his word was law.

Part of his regime was to make sure my Brother and I had a haircut every 3-4 weeks. On the face of it, that might not seem too bad, and in the 1960's, short hair could still be tolerated in young boys as I was then. However, by the time the 70's had begun, long hair was very much in fashion and it was devastating to be dragged to the Barbers to have a 'short back and sides'. This is somewhat an understatement as my hair was often shaved at the back and sides upon the instruction of my Father, on the face of it because he wanted to treat us like his squaddies. Looking back now, I can see that this was just another form of his control.

The haircutting regime, plus other factors such as my clothes, (more of which later) had a devastating effect on me. When I started Secondary school in 1972, long hair was very much in vogue and when I came along, despite being a First Former, I stuck out like a sore thumb. For the next three years I was almost constantly bullied for the way I looked, sometimes getting in fights and trouble at the school. My main nemesis was a boy called Andrew Hedges who was bigger, tougher and probably had problems of his own to contend with. Not that that excuses his behaviour. I believe that the way you bring up your children is very important and if you bully them and beat them, that is how they behave in kind. This was certainly the case with my Father and very probably with Andrew Hedges too.

If there was to be a haircut, my Father would meet me from school in the car, a white Viva estate. I remember it had blue plastic seats which were unbearably hot in summer, especially if you were wearing shorts! There would be no prior warning such as ‘I will take you for a haircut tonight’, he would just arrive and be waiting for me after school. This happened regularly every 4-5 weeks at the outside.

Apart from my problems with the haircut regime, I had worse with the Barber himself.
For some reason I was bullied and intimidated by the man from the time I started going there at about the age of six, until I was about 15 or 16.

His shop was at the end of a little row with what must have been a Victorian frontage, a door on the right and a large window on the left as you faced it. The chairs and mirrors were down the left hand side of the shop with bench seats around the back wall and right hand side of the room. There were magazines and comics to read, some of which were ‘Playboy’ and ‘Mayfair’.

I think this guy must have been ex-military, because my Father seemed to know him, although they were not friends as such and a lot of squaddies from the camp would go there for their haircuts. I would see them sitting around waiting on the benches.

The Barber wore the typical purple nylon coat with a black collar, white shirt and knitted tie and his hair was always ‘slicked’ down which gave him a sort of Italian look. I would think when I was going there he would have been in about his early to mid 40’s.

When I had got into the chair and was gowned-up, he would either ask, or my Father would tell him ‘the usual please’, meaning the short cut. I was never spoken to directly or treated with any dignity at all. He would begin cutting my hair with clippers and shove my head back and forth as required, sometimes quite roughly. If I didn’t keep my head as still as he wanted, he would tell me so.

“Keep your head still son!” and a bit later, “If you cant keep your head still I am going to have to get cross with you in a minute!”

He would say such things as if he despised me and loud enough so that the customers and my Father could all hear. These were not silent threats.

He would scrape the back of my neck with the clippers until it was sore and drew blood on more than one occasion I recall. Once, he even gave my ear a vicious pinch for not keeping still which brought tears to my eyes.

The odd thing was, I was always tried my hardest to keep my head still and I am sure I succeeded because I knew what would follow if I didn’t. It used to make my physically sick when I knew we were going there and I had that ‘butterfly’ stomach feeling throughout the ordeal. If I thought about it when I knew that time of the month was coming, I would physically wretch with anxiety.

I have no idea why this man treated me so. I didn’t do anything to him and I never spoke back to him. Usually my Father was in earshot and would have killed me if I had done so.

I recently spoke to my Brother, Luke about this man to see if he could remember anything about him. Although we were taken there together in the late 60’s, early 70’s, I never saw Luke or anyone else treated so harshly. Without giving too much away about my reasons, Luke could add very little to the story.

By the time I was 15 or 16 my Father trusted me enough to go by myself after school and didn’t come to get me. I was ‘told’ when I was to go and get my haircut. I think I went once or twice by myself with the same treatment and then I discovered another barber a short bus ride away and never went back. I didn’t tell my Father that I had changed establishments and I was never questioned about it. As long as I came back with the required cut, there were no inquisitions. However, it still fills me with a certain dread when I think of it now.