Something for the weekend

I have been cutting my own hair since I was 15. There is still a lot to cut and I think that I, like my father, will die with a well-carpeted head.

Since I could remember, my father always took me to the same Welsh barber in town, dropping me off with the same instructions - 'the usual' - and picking me up after I had been given the short back and sides.

The barber -whose son was in my class at school - did not like me for some reason. Possibly I seemed like a little English toff in his eyes. He knew where we lived, which was the wealthiest part of the area containing the largest and most expensive houses in an otherwise horribley boring, run-down town. Woking was only one step up from Slough and quite close, geographically.

Every two or three weeks I would be taken to the Welsh barber, and every time - and I mean every time - he would finish the haircut by pulling one ear away from my head to cut into the flesh where it joined it, with the electronic clippers. That was painful enough, but he insisted on using a styptic pencil to stop the blood, and that was excruciating. Every time I was taken to him I would sit in the chair waiting for the fortnightly torture session. It went on for years.

I told my father what he did and that it was deliberate, but he never believed me so I stopped mentioning it. My parents never supported me against adults and I am ashamed to say that they were more than willing to accept the adults' version of events rather than their own son's.

One Saturday morning he was about to take me to the Welsh sadist again, but I flatly refused to go. He said I must and I said I would never go back to that barber again. After about five minutes of this, he understood that the only way I was going to get into the car was by him tying me up and putting me in the boot.

Luckily for everyone involved, my sister had just trained to be a hairdresser, so she took over hair duties until I was old enough to decide for myself what length it should be.

I left home just before I was sixteen, and by that time my hair was well below my ears. Whenever I thought it needed cutting I did it myself. I still do. My hair is easy to cut.

The old-fashioned barbers pole with the red stripe goes back to the days when barbers also let blood. Maybe the Welsh sadist thought he still could.