Haircut!

A long time ago, when I was a teenager, I was imposed upon to get a haircut. For some reason, forgotten in the billowing stygian mists of time, I ended up with my Dad at the barber’s shop in Welwyn Department Store, in Welwyn Garden City, Hertfordshire, England, The World. Why my Dad was there I have no idea. Perhaps because at that time I had a summer job at ICI Plastics Division, where he worked, and he and I would drive together to and from the plant, which was also in Welwyn Garden City.

The barber’s shop was an old-fashioned place, with big brown leather chairs for waiting, piles of tatty magazines on a few tables, a black and white checquered floor, and walls adorned with photos of chaps with immaculate barnets in the style popular at the time: i.e. they looked like modular hair pieces or helmets. The haircut chairs were big and chrome-armed, and highly suitable as props in a Sweeney Todd play. This was the same establishment at which my Dad had once been asked if he “wanted a Perry Como”, whereupon he had had to enquire who Perry Como was, and what he looked like. I think my Dad was anticipating some fun with my haircut.

The barbers were two highly effeminate chaps in blousy shirts and tight pants. They were charicatures of gay barbers. In fact, the whole gay barber theme may well have originated with these two. Being a young and impressionable youth I was a little uncomfortable with them, as they bustled about clucking and sweeping and running their razors up and down the leather straps in preparation for the customers. Perhaps I was uncomfortable at the prospect of having my throat slit while in the chair, or being rogered while getting into it. There is no accounting for what goes through the minds of adolescent boys.

Anyway, after some waiting, one of the barbers motioned me to a vacant chair: “Over here, ducky.” and I went and sat down. With a flourish and a waft of shampoo fumes, he billowed a large white sheet around me, secured it snugly round my neck, and fussed with the fit. I fancied he spent a little too long fussing over making sure it covered my trousers. Then, he spinned the chair around, so I was facing the waiting chairs, and he and his partner stood in front of me, arms folded, and legs akimbo.

“So, what are we going to do with you today?”

I didn’t answer.

“He’s a bit quiet, isn’t he Nigel?”

Nigel nodded.

“What sort of haircut do you want?”

I mumbled something non commital.

“What’s that?”

“I don’t really care.” I said, unconvincingly.

There was shriek of of merriment from Nigel.

“Ooooooh, Sir! Don’t pretend you don’t care! We can both see that you like to wear your hair full!”

Nigel enunciated the word “full” with extreme lasciviousness. I reddened in extreme embarassment. It was true: I *did* wear my hair very “full” … mainly because it was hardly ever cut. It looked like a hairy crash helmet. But I didn’t want the people waiting, or my Dad, to think that was deliberate. God forbid! The shame, the shame of being concerned about what your appearance was!

My Dad snorted in amusement. For some reason it tickled him immensely. I wasn’t offended: I could see the funny side of it. In fact, after Nigel had cut my hair, and I looked in the mirror and realised how much more appetising I looked, and as we were walking back to the car, my Dad and I both had more good laughs, which continued for some time thereafter.

Finger Ends

sarahparah‘s post about scissoring her finger, and the incident with the “Let’s see how close we can get these scissors to our eyes” incident as related by Poopsie yesterday, makes me remember my ICI finger end incident.

When I was about 15 I went for a couple of months to work at my Dad’s place: ICI Plastics Division in Welwyn Garden City. It was very interesting. I was assigned to the research division which investigated customers’ problems with plastic. These varied from looking at the extrusion moulding process for combs, pipes, and fishing tackle boxes, to quite sophisticated measurements using mass spectrographs etc..

The department had an exemplary safety record. Something ridiculous like “Over 1,000,000 Hours Accident Free” was announced by a large plaque on the wall. One day I was told that we needed to investigate supposed contamination on polyethylene sheeting. There was an enormous roll of it. The procedure was to cut up a square meter of the sheeting into small squares, put the squares in a flask with some solvent, whisk the whole thing up for an hour or so, and then measure the solvent for dissolved contaminants.

So I set up on a huge table with the big roll of plastic, got a very long ruler, a one-sided razor blade (wait for it …), and started cutting out the plastic sheet in squares. To do this, I held the ruler against the sheet with one hand, and with the other I would cut through the plastic sheet using the ruler as a guide.

Unfortunately, after a few strokes, the end of my my left index finger, unbeknownst to me, had somehow moved so that it was proud of the edge of the ruler. Unwittingly, I swept the razor blade along, with a flourish, and watched the end of my finger as it skidaddled across the table, fell to the floor, and came to rest against a table leg. It is a most unforgettable image, indelibly seared in my memory. And then the blood started. Soon, if the plastic sheeting had not been contaminated before, it was then, with blood.

I am sorry to say that they had to take down their 1,000,000 accident free hours plaque after that, and I never quite felt trusted for the remainder of my time there.

I do not remember what became of my finger end. Although it looked like a big piece at the time, I can see no evidence of a missing piece now, so I guess it grew back, like a starfish leg.

Beryl and Lily

Today I would like to tell you about Beryl and Lily.

Beryl and Lily were two old ladies who were neighbours, when I lived in St.Albans, many moons ago. Beryl died in about 1980, Lily is still going strong: she must be about 100 now,

Beryl was highly intelligent and had taken a degree at one of the London University colleges. Her career had been at ICI, where she’d risen to the level of PA to the Chairman of the Board. She was probably capable of being Chairman herself, but I suppose in those days she had to settle for being the PA to the Chairman. She was widely read and travelled. She spoke several languages. She never married. She was quite (in the English sense) wealthy … we would say “comfortable”. She owned an old Rover car which she never drove at more than 30 mph, even on the motorway (which she hated). The Rover was all wood and leather inside, and in an immaculate state of preservation. “One careful lady owner” summed it up. She was a mousey-looking woman of slender build. She had short hair and a squarish face and wore spectacles. In her day I think she was probably attractive, but not beautiful. Beryl loved cats. She was bonkers about them. She took a particular shine to our cat, called Joe, and would host him at her house as often as she could. She had a sun lounge extension built on the back of her house just to provide a place for Joe to sit in the warm, because she worried about him being outside. We took Joe on holiday to Norfolk with us once, in our caravn, and he escaped. We never found him. When we got back, we had to tell Beryl, who was mortified. The next day she was off with Lily to Norfolk in search of Joe. She spent a week there, staying in a local hotel, searching and investigating. But she never found him. She advertised in the local Norfolk papers and in the London Times, offering a reward of five thousand pounds to anyone who found Joe. That was a serious sum of money in those days. No one came forward.

Beryl was obsessed with cleanliness. She got through several gallon bottles of Dettol (an antispetic solution widely sold in the UK) a week. If she ever touched anything other than herself, she had to wash her hands. When she and Lily came round for drinks, Beryl would sit stiffly with her hands folded in her lap, and only touch the glass of sherry she always asked for. Her hands were dry and powdery. They looked like they had been soaked in strong antispetic solution, which is probably what they had been. We all knew not to shake hands with her or touch her. It was very hard to understand why such an intelligent person would have such an irrational fear of being even slightly unclean.

Lily was Hardy to Beryl’s Laurel. She was stout and short and rather stupid. Possibly one of the most bigotted people I have ever known, she had every prejudice in the book. She had initially been employed by Beryl as a housekeeper, but ended up as her companion. I don’t think there was any love in the relationship at all. But they shared a common interest in the ballet. My Dad and I used to reckon that they both went to the ballet just to gawp at Rudolf Nureyev’s prodigious package. My Mum was outraged at the slur.

Tragically, Beryl developed throat cancer, and went downhill very rapidly. The day before she died she came around to see my Mum and did something very uncharacteristic: she hugged her. She just knew she was going to die, and she loved my Mum, and needed to have that physical contact which she’d never had with her.

I think Beryl had a good life, but it made me sad then, and makes me sad when I think of it now, to think that she might have been bottling up her love and affection for people simply because she couldn’t deal with the cleanliness issue of touching.

I must end this on a lighter note. Every Christmas we would invite Beryl and Lily around for drinks on Christmas morning. It was quite an event. They wouldn’t stay long, just enough time to have a glass of Sherry and a mince pie. Our dog, Sam, who was an incorrigible rogue of a mongrel, and widely reviled in the neighbourhood for putting all the bitch dogs up the duff with his unwanted affections, would somehow always find a way of positioning himself right at the centre of the gathering, right in front of the fire, right where everyone couldn’t avoid looking at him.

So he’d sit there during all the polite conversation one has with two little old ladies, and start licking his arse. The conversation would falter. An uncomfortable silence would fall, and then the blasted dog would shift position, so that his undercarriage was on full show. Then he’d start to lick that. And slowly, but surely (it happened every Christmas), his red, glistening dick would emerge from its furry sheath, until, at full extent, it was half way up his stomach. And there it would stop expanding, and just oscillate slightly. Then he’d look around the room, with a smug expression, as much as to say “Now that’s what I call an ERECTION!“

At this point my Mum would usually say “Another mince pie, Beryl?”.