Over fifty years ago, in the days when my beard was black and I was driving on the tramp for Billy Harrison, times were hard. Theoretically we were limited to eleven hours driving a day but in common with many other drivers the rules were often broken. After driving all night, one of the best ways of refreshing yourself was a good face wash and breakfast. I was passing through a small town somewhere in Lincolnshire one morning with this in mind when I saw a man in a white apron opening his barber's shop up and thought that a clean shave would be a good start to the day so I stopped (you could park anywhere in those days as long as you weren't causing an obstruction.) and went in. Ten minutes later sixpence had changed hands, he was on about the same wage as I was, three shillings and sixpence an hour, that's about 17p in today's terms, and I was feeling like a million dollars, all I needed was breakfast.
I was thinking about this and it struck me that apart from the general decline in the importance and number of barber's shops, paying someone to shave you is completely forgotten and I got to wondering why. Before we plunge into that, have a look at this week's picture. I have pulled this out of a much larger picture of Church Street in about 1900 so forgive the quality. It's 28 and 30 Church Street, the two shops next to what used to be the Seven Stars public house. In later days number 30 was Woodward's the clock maker. At this time it was Eccleston's newsagents and Shaw's Excelsior Saloon, a barber's shop. It still has the old barber's pole which dates back to when barbers were surgeons as well and performed minor operations. I can't find Shaw in the trade directories but have records of Eccleston at number 28 from 1887 to 1905 so our date of 1900 is about right. This combination of a newsagents and tobacconist together with the barber's says a lot about the retail trades in the early part of the 20th century. They were essential elements of the life of the town, you got your papers and tobacco in one shop and then went next door perhaps to discuss the day's news while you were having a haircut or a shave. Ernie Roberts told me that when he was a lad he had a job as a lather boy at this shop, I think it was run by a man called Demmeline in the 1920s. The lather boy's job was to soap up the face before shaving with hot soapy water and a brush made usually from Badger hair. He also ran errands, mostly the placing of illegal bets at the bookie's down Wapping.
These days a bloke can get a safety razor anywhere and there are more lotions and soaps than you can poke a stick at to enhance your 'shaving experience'. Have you ever wondered why they are called 'safety' razors? In those days the most common shaving tool was the open or 'cut throat' razor. This was a concave blade about four inches long and was occasionally used by criminals as a weapon. The best razors were made in Solingen, Germany and were as sharp (possibly sharper) as a surgeons scalpel. Every barber had to be an expert at 'setting' the edge of the blade on a fine stone and 'stropping' it on a piece of horse-hide leather treated with a mild abrasive like jeweller's rouge. This ability to get a sharp edge may have been the reason they were surgeons in the old days. I bought my open razor from Mr Sneath when he had a barber's shop in Park Road and it was a beautiful piece of Solingen steel. It served me well until one of my daughters used it to sharpen a pencil and broke a section out of the blade! As you can well imagine, these blades were dangerous and the slightest mistake meant a nasty cut. This why the new-fangled razors with a guard on the blade's edge were called safety razors, you might get an occasional nick from them but you couldn't cut your throat if someone jogged your elbow!
So, having a barber shave you was quite a significant and personal act. For a start there was the soothing application of hot lather with a fine brush to soften the whiskers which was almost soporific and then there was the fact that you had to trust the barber completely because he was going to attack your face with a blade sharp enough to do serious injury. With practice a barber becomes very skilled and nothing beats the closeness of a good shave with an open razor but I often wondered how they practised! Was there a trail of blood-stained faces in their past? The man who shaved me in that Lincolnshire town all those years ago was an expert, I can still remember running my fingers across a perfectly smooth cheek when I got back in the cab.
I suppose the advent of do-it-yourself shaving with a safety razor was progress but like so many other examples of 'improvements' we lost something along the way. The barbers lost a source of income but even more important, the ordinary working man lost the opportunity to experience exactly the same level of luxury as the highest in the land. The only difference was that instead of having your personal valet minister to you, you went to the Excelsior Saloon and paid Mr Shaw to do the same job. A good close shave is a good close shave and what you ended up with was the same as the Duke! Incidentally, barbers would often be called on to attend someone at home if they were ill and shave them as they lay in bed. It doesn't get more luxurious than that!
These days I use an electric razor and cut my own hair, the pension goes further that way but I have a story for you. About thirty years ago I faced a three hour delay at what used to be called Ringway Airport and instead of going into a decline I went into the barber's shop in the concourse (Remember to concrete flags of all the old airlines built into the wall?) and asked him to give me everything, haircut, shave, shampoo, facial massage and he told me it was the first time anyone had ever asked for that. I think it cost me about £10 and I can tell you that when I emerged from the shop I was riding high! Go on, treat yourself and do the same thing!
Eccleston's newsagents and Shaw's Excelsior Saloon on Church Street about 1900.
