HOWZAT

Not having to specify exactly what you would like done to your hair is, for many men, a relief. Knowing that you want to look a certain way is straightforward; but actually explaining it can be harder, even excruciatingly embarrassing. Listen in on some barber/client conversations, and often only the briefest moment is given over to exactly what will happen to the hair. For William Morrison, 70, the fact that he’s had a “short back and sides” here since 1972 means he and Paul don’t talk about hair at all. Instead, Morrison is taking advantage of a barber’s knowledge of local goings-on, gleaned from the dozens of conversations he’ll have with local residents each day. The big news is that a building further up the high street has subsided and threatens to collapse.

“I enjoy the conversation,” says Morrison afterwards. Does he ever discuss personal stuff? “No, not a lot. We talk about what’s happening in the world, topical stuff. I’ve been meeting him every other month for years, so I know how his train of thought goes.”

Does that sort of relationship exist elsewhere in his life? “Well, the doctors’ surgery is a health centre now, so the person you see will always change. Perhaps people who go to clubs have a similar experience, but I don’t go to too many clubs. My wife doesn’t keep too well, you see.”

The role played by conversation and socialising is even more obvious at Shapes Barbers on Streatham Hill, South London. It’s light, airy and open “till late”, with MTV Base playing on a flat-screen TV and Polaroid photos of elaborate styles on the wall for a predominantly young, black clientele. Three teenagers, who declined to be interviewed, sit on a row of metal chairs and argue, breaking into sporadic bursts of ribald laughter, and occasionally getting up to smoke outside.

Jason Grant, 31, is conscious that Shapes is a very much a male environment. “But in many ways, I think that’s a benefit. When you come in, the general atmosphere is about conversation and about debating things,” he explains while waiting for his barber to finish another job. “We’ll talk about things that happen in current affairs, or the community, or in sport… People will have differences of opinion, but everybody feels that they express that opinion, which is important.”

“Football is the liveliest topic though,” adds Glyn Aikins, who wears a Chelsea kit to rile his barber, Paul Job, a Liverpool fan with a poster of Torres and Gerrard by his chair. During the football season, Saturdays will see the shop packed out with people not even getting haircuts, but there instead just to watch the games. “It turns out like the arguments they have round the table on Sky Sports,” Aikens chuckles. “It’s almost like a working men’s social club, with Liverpool, Everton, Man Utd fans all going at it. It’s a forum for debate.”

A well-nurtured sporting rivalry running through a barbershop doesn’t seem uncommon. Back at Colin’s, Clive is the resident Bradford Bulls supporter who’ll get ribbed by his Leeds Rhinos-following regulars. These days, I get my haircuts at Yaseen Hair Dressers in Bethnal Green, East London, but the theme is still there, with Pakistan v India cricket matches entertainingly splitting the staff’s loyalties. Tony, my usual barber, will support Pakistan but Ramzin, an older barber who’s a bit of a father figure to the others, is from India.

Yaseen is, in many ways, like Colin’s: similar prices (£7 for men’s trim), similar age range and equally top-drawer results. Tony, however, doesn’t think a good barber should be talking to the customer as he cuts, instead “just concentrating on work”. He also doesn’t rate a lot of British barbering, insisting that Pakistani and Indian barbers are more “technical”, good with scissors, rather than depending on “clippers and machines”. Businesslike when cutting my hair, the staff fawn over five-year-old Jordan when his mum brings him in, spoiling him with sweets after his haircut.

In Bournemouth, Mark Jamson is taking his 12-year-old son Joseph to the Southbourne Barbers. It’s a cute shop, with a display of vintage hairstyling products and splashes of rockabilly-cum-burlesque kitsch (Dita von Teese calendar, illustrations of Fifties Hollywood icons on the walls). Owner Jason Bailey, fantastically turned out with a waistcoat and quiff, is cutting 18-year-old Adam Pulfer’s hair as they wait. Transplant the place to Soho and it would soon be a hipster salon with prices to match. But to Pulfer (“You always get a good haircut. It’s a nice place”) and the Jamsons, it’s just their local barbershop.

“We normally come here together,” says Mark. “The main guy is really nice. He makes it personal without it being in your face. He’ll have a laugh and a joke, but he gets on with it. You’re not here for hours.”

This seems to sum up what a trip to the barber’s entails: painless, possibly pleasant and with just enough familiarity to make the intimacy of the act less awkward. Over time, this familiarity with the barber, other customers and the shop itself can become a deep-seated source of comfort, which isn’t bad for something born out of a chore. Which is why salons, with their mixed clientele and revolving door of staff, will never edge the men’s barbershop out of business.

“We’re not in competition with Sassoon or anywhere ultra-modern,” says Colin. “Because if you treat the people who go to the barber’s well, they’ll keep coming back. And anyway,” he smiles, “we’d have a job getting away with Clive as ‘ultra-modern’.”