Ronnies – Photo with thanks to Graham Gower Collection 1972
On return from Keele University in late June, but before starting work in early July, I sorted myself out, including, by the looks of it, a hair cut:
Thursday 1 July 1982 – had hair brutally severed – went to G[randma] Jenny in afternoon
I suspect I treasured my student mop, while recognising that I needed to look “young professional” for the summer weeks of work.
I never much liked having my hair cut.
My childhood memories from Ronnies in Leigham Avenue, Streatham (depicted above) involve my mother cajoling me into going to the place.
Under normal circumstances, a very patient, younger barber named Oliver would cut my hair while distracting me with the sort of chatter that kept a reluctant kid calm.
But occasionally Oliver would not be available and Ronnie himself would cut my hair. I didn’t take to Ronnie’s methods, which invariably (probably because I was an unwilling participant) seemed painful and not to my aesthetic taste. Mind you, my aesthetic taste at that time would have been to have hair as long as I possibly could get away with and on no account to present myself at any barber shop.
My haircut reluctance probably upset my mother a good deal, whose father, my Grandpa Lew, had been a barber all of his working life.
My good friend Rohan Candappa had a much happier relationship with his hair and wih his barbers – he even wrote a performance piece about it: The Last Man Cave…
…here’s a cut from a performance of it (did you see what I did there?)
But Rohan’s early visits to the barbers would have been in Thornton Heath and Bromley – not Ronnies of Streatham.
I am pretty sure that Oliver had left Ronnies before my childhood ended. I am not sure whether Ronnies was still there in 1982 (knowledgeable folk on the Streatham history FB group might be able to confirm), but I have a feeling it was still there and that I probably went there for my brutal severing.
I don’t think I’d have made a fuss about it in that post-Keele cut of 1982. I took my revenge in my diary – suspecting that, at some stage in the future – say 40 years hence – I could publish the diary entry and the phrase “brutally severed” would no doubt take off as “a thing”, once and for all to expunge the despised hair-cut from the cultural canon.
I raised this matter with Rohan Candappa the other day, who suggested that Brutus Severus would be an excellent light-hearted name for a modern barbers. It’s probably just as well that Rohan’s days in advertising are now over.
Sadly, I have no pictures from 1982 to depict the exact “before and after” look, but I do have some from two or three years earlier, which probably will give the casual reader a reasonable idea and will give old friends a recognisable glimpse back in time.
