Short Back and Sides - The Life and Times of Walter Oglesby, Gentlemen's Hairdresser (2/3) By Jane Foster

(1/3), (2/3), (3/3),

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Walter was a 'bound apprentice' by law. His first tasks were cleaning the shop, with all its brasses and mirrors. Then he became a lather lad - shaving the customers. But not until he had learned how to sharpen a cut throat razor to perfection - an art that took him a whole year to learn until the boss allowed him to be let loose on a customer!

I asked if he had ever cut a customer accidentally. Only once, he says. A docker who just wouldn't stop gabbing! I told him to shut up or else he might get cut, and sure enough it did happen! But it soon stopped bleeding.

In 1941 Walter joined the Army, where he continued to cut hair. Hair cutting in the Army isn't recognised as a trade, he says. It's a purely voluntary job. I gave them all as near as I could, a civvy cut. Walter served in Greece, Egypt and Palestine, which he left in 1946 after catching dysentery from infested bread.

Walter returned to Hull and married Lily in 1948. In need of a good job so they could be secure, he went to work for Frank Tate. Frank had a shop on Hedon Road, more or less opposite the docks. He was a fantastic man, says Walter. Firm, honest, paid me well. We worked together for 20 odd years and never had an argument. The shop was always busy, bustling with the dockers and other local workers from the factories. It was the dockers that provide the fondest memories for Walter: They were so witty and funny. I had the patter to deal with them - whatever they said you had to have some retort back.

Walter soon began to see them as friends, not customers, and the dockers saw him as one of them. Says Walter : Once I got their confidence, they'd confide in me about all sorts of things. This tradition of hairdressers as confidantes, almost lay psychiatrists in some cases, has obviously been around a long time. A recent study of job satisfaction in different professions showed that hairdressers are top of the list. They love their work because of this level of intimacy with their customers, despite the fact that they are still one of the more poorly paid occupations.

I have often felt that hairdressers should be more recognised for the job they do, which is after all an art form - as well as it seems, an unofficial counselling service!

But did Walter ever really utter that infamous expression, anything for the weekend, Sir? He assures me that indeed, he did! He recounts the tale of one man - quite an elderly gentleman - who would flounder in the shop asking for razor blades when in fact what he always wanted was, er, you know what. Eventually Walter had a few quiet but honest words with him and told him to just point to what he wanted. Then all was well from then on!

Continued ...next page

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