The artistry of a good haircut, and the misery of a bad one.

Up until the age of 21, no one ever cut my hair apart from my father. I was reminded of the fact yesterday when one of my daughters posted a photograph of a horse, whose mane had been clipped in a very straight line. This was a comment on my hairdressing skills, not my dad's.  When the girls were little, I used to cut their fringes, and the horse picture was a reminder of my one and only style, the geometric hairdo.

My father, on the other hand, was a skilled barber and hairdresser. A ten-year-old orphaned Christian boy, he was taken in as a shop helper by a Muslim barber in 1920s Istanbul and learned a trade that he knew would give him an income to support himself and his baby brother. He graduated to having his own salons and teaching at the Kamer Institute in Athens. So, he could cut hair. I was always guaranteed a great haircut, always effortless and he really understood my coarse and unruly mop.

His passing was far sadder than anything else I had experienced until then, and now, decades after his death, it seems like yesterday, when he would patiently clip away and make me look human again when the clump of black wiry hair on my little head grew to ridiculous proportions.  My childhood hair, encouraged by the daily swims in the sea, the dust, and the rough and tumble of growing up at a time when we were pretty much allowed to spend all day running and falling over, would silently fall on the floor; black puffs and wiry wool clumps, and in the mirror two faces, both smiling.

But why the build up? Today, I looked in the mirror, a mere week after an unfortunate haircut. What a joyless thing is a bad haircut! What an annoyance and a reminder of one's petty intolerances, really.  My life has not been drastically affected by having this cut. I have not suffered loss of sleep, it has not made me sad, and I have not wished the barber ill.  But, all the same, I think of him every day. I look in the mirror and I see the badly shorn angles on my temples. I desperately pat down the disproportionate quiff that is making me look slightly ridiculous at my age. I recall him snipping away without proper focus. And I feel sorry for him. How awful it must be to not be able to do a job well. Of course, lots of us do jobs badly, some of the time.  I want to be magnanimous.  A lot of us make mistakes. Not like this, surely.  He cuts hair every day. Is he always this bad? If you do the same drawing again and again and you never improve, what would you do? It is hard to have perspective when it comes to our own outcomes and I think cutting hair must be one of those cases of simply not being aware of your own errors.

To generalise somewhat, in many barbers' shops, there are usually a couple of people cutting hair.  The owner and an apprentice. The owner is the older chap and has learned to cut hair the old way: scissors and a comb. Hands, usually old hands, glide effortlessly.  His talk is normally quiet, a bit more thoughtful. He has seen it all, heard it all. He paces the cut. He holds up the mirror and there is his handy work.  Clean, not exciting, but accurate.

The younger man has 'done' a BTEC. The electric clippers are his tool of choice. Buzzing and laughing about his weekend exploits and his planned purchase of a large motorbike, he will let his wayward hand fly around your head, sometimes hitting the target, at other times nonchalantly carving out a sad little groove of hair. Steps and little uneven patches are his trademarks. The thinning scissors are a real giveaway.  When they are waved around with gay abundance, you know you will suffer.  This tool is amazing and in the right hands makes thick hair more manageable. In the wrong hands, however,  it simply creates the impression of natural hair loss.  Little spaced-out square teeth will cut randomly and accidentally where they should not.  Et voila! A product may be hastily applied to style the ensuing mess.  'Great' I quip as I look at the nest of badly arranged gel on my tired, lined face. 'Great'.

The real damage is only discernible in its full glory, after a shampoo. This morning, there it was again. I am not used to thinking about people I do not really know well. But darn it! I have been forced to think of the barber every time I have looked in the mirror. I think of him with a kind of annoyance but also disbelief. Is it that hard to cut hair? He does it every day. Does everyone feel as let down as me? Do people actually complain? Let's be honest.  I usually circle the shop to make sure that the guy who can actually cut hair is free. He seldom is.  When there is a likelihood that I may be caught out and have to settle for the apprentice, I will probably walk on and come back another time. There is something very embarrassing about walking into a barber's and waiting for one of them to finish and do your hair, whilst in the meantime, the apprentice is playing with his phone.  So timing is of the essence.  You just have to jump in, just as the chair of the master is freed up from the last customer and not before. If you do, as I did, mistime your entry, you are doomed.