THE QUIFF**

Tony Curtis was to blame, followed by Cliff Richard and Billy Fury, The Quiff!
All the young lads in town had a quiff. Hours were spent in front
of the mirror with a comb and a jar of Brylcream, teasing up The
Quiff until it stood proud and greasy. I have never been able to
understand how a cricketer, Dennis Compton, should be a role
model for Brylcream instead of a pop star.

Unless you were a Teddy Boy with long hair, a quiff and a "DA", haircuts were a fairly regular affair, providing your mum had the money to spare and you managed to fend her off sitting you down with a towel around your neck and attacking your Barnet with scissors and a pudding bowl.

Our demon barber was Dougie. He first had a shop at the rear
of a sweet shop on the corner across from The Station Hotel
then moved to a small shop adjacent to the railway crossing at
our railway station. The shop was furnished with several tip-up
seats which had been taken from the local cinema, the
obligatory large mirror on the wall, and of course Dougie.
Dougie? How this man could talk, and his main topic of talking
was fishing. Now apart from being boring, it was also
dangerous, for Douggie spoke with his hands, no-one went to
Dougie for a shave or asked to have their eyebrows trimmed.
Many a time when he was "squaring off" your hair at the back
he would tell of hauling in a twopounder and his trimmers would
leave a patch up the back of your head.

Years went by and we all grew up (well some of us) and the day
came when the decision was made to get rid of The Quiff. I can
still remember the day when, with intrepidation, I went into
Dougies and said the immortal words "cut the quiff off please".
The next day was the only time I was glad to wear the stupid
little cap that my Grammar school insisted we wear.

More years came and went, marriage, children, the hair doesn't matter now and you just get it cut and comb it now and then, until one day on a trip out we called into a store, and all of a sudden I let out an almighty scream, for there in front of me was a TV screen and the CCTV camera had caught the back of my head and there for all the world, no, not them, but ME to see, was The Tonsure in all its glory. Why had no-one told me? How
long had it been like this?

The baldness has now long been forgotten, I don't know I'm bald when I look in the mirror and the only time it's mentioned is when my seven year old grandson creeps up behind me, pats The Tonsure and shouts out at the top of his voice, "Baldie"!