Haircut, Sir!

[Spoonbill]

Quite out of the blue, I found myself thinking about the perils of school haircuts and about famed barber Peg-Leg whose job it was to inflict them on easily-traumatised pupils. I ended up wondering what the score was with girl-haircuts etc. and also about who Peg-Leg's predecessors and sucessors were. (I remember Peg-Leg used to come up to CH on a Tuesday from Shoreham-by-Sea, where he allegedly had a salon.)

I hated the way he used to shout "Next smelly boy!" each time he'd finished butchering a kid's head - it struck terror into my heart and no mistake. I got so sick of crap haircuts that I used to go from classroom to haircut room, sign my name in the book, sneak back out again without getting my hair cut, then go back to the classroom having wet-combed my hair en route so I'd look slightly different to the master/school monitor/anyone who cared to notice. I never had another school haircut after the age of 15.

But the bad haircut business must've been even more soul-destroying for girls, since their peers tend to be even more bitchy about such things (best friends not wanting to be seen with you if you've fallen victim to a sh1t haircut etc.).

How was it for you?

[Great Plum]

Luckily, whilst there was still a school barber when I was at CH (they were behind the back of the tuck shop building and then bizarrely moved to the Scout Hut), I never had a school haircut and I thnk it had ceased to become compulsory by that time.

By my GE (I think), there was no longer a school barber...

[Katharine]

We had a hairdresser (that's being polite) who came on Wednesday afternoons (I think). That morning at breakfast you sat poking your head forward as if your housemistress thought your hair touched your collar you were for it. The haircuts were as cr*p as yours by the sound of it. If you decided to grow your hair it had to be put in bunches as soon as it touched your collar - which was far too short for bunches to work.

Don't remember anyone being rude about anyone else's haircut as we all knew it could happen to us!

[Mid A 15]

It was Pegleg throughout my time as far as I remember.

[midget]

We had a hairdresser (that's being polite) who came on Wednesday afternoons (I think). That morning at breakfast you sat poking your head forward as if your housemistress thought your hair touched your collar you were for it. The haircuts were as cr*p as yours by the sound of it. If you decided to grow your hair it had to be put in bunches as soon as it touched your collar - which was far too short for bunches to work.

Don't remember anyone being rude about anyone else's haircut as we all knew it could happen to us!

I wonder if it was the same barber that we had years earlier. At one stage it was announced that 6th formers could have a "special" cut. It took about a minute and a half longer and looked no better. I remember once that Maureen Harding (I can mention her because sadly she is no longer with us) wanted her hair cut so that she didn't have to put it in bunches, and the barber wasn't due to come to 3's for another couple of weeks, so a group of us did it for her (SAFETY IN NUMBERS IF CAUGHT) It turned out much shorter than she had expected as it was so uneven to start with. We then had the problem of disposing of the hair, so we buried it in the Ward garden. Surprisingly there were no repercussions.

[huntertitus]

Oh Peg-Leg I remember well with the dreadful creaking of the wooden leg as he moved about. He used to smoke B&H cigarettes as he did the cutting and ash would drop onto you from the filthy fag in his mouth. Also he would clamp one of your legs inbetween his while ruining your locks, just to stop you escaping, I suppose. He always seemed to have two young male assistants who were spotty and smelly - the fore-runners of "chavs" I suppose. I am sure RR will put an amusing post on this subject.

[DC]

School haircuts were a disgrace. It wasn't so much that we had to have them, it was more the fact that the people who they hired obviously didn't care one jot about the quality of the work they were doing.

The bloke we had was a podgy red-faced chain smoker with a blond highlighted mullet. Vidal Sassoon he was not. He must have had one eye higher than the other as he couldn't cut straight for love nor money.

We soon learnt that if you dragged your heels to get there, you would end up at the back of the queue outside and then you could leg it when the monitor got bored and went back to house for tea and toast.

[Jude]

I think he was still cutting (or removing ??) hair when my son went to CH - it was bad enough when I took him, but when he came home at the end of term - I actually walked past my own son as I didn't recognise him due to the hair cut..... He now has a head of hair he keeps well trimmed, and still visits the same barber/hairdressers we have all been to for the past 15 years......

I think it was the school barber who nicked Chris's ear when almost shaving his head off!

[AKAP]

I think it was the school barber who nicked Chris's ear when almost shaving his head off!

Sounds like peg leg to me.

[englishangel]

We all cut each others hair in this house.

Husband is nearly bald so he has a No 1 in summer No 2 in winter every 2 or 3 weeks to tidy up.

Daughter has long straight hair so I keep the ends trimmed and she does the fringe(it is exactly the same colour as a copper beech. Dark brown until the sun shines on it, then dark red, she could do adverts.

Older son has hair long enough to tie back, which he usually does unless at a gig. I trim the bends. He trims mine, straight round the bottom. Last time it was done professionally was a year ago exactly.

YOunger son has to be done professsionally as he has a weird crown. But back in the dsay he used toget a No 6.

[Jude]

Daughter and self have got to the point of "annual" haircuts... It means you can work out what you like each year! She normally has her's cut in July / August - I broke with tradition this year and had an extra one as I had got to that "in between" stage (I guess only us Girls will know about that!!) so had it lopped again!

[UserRequestedRemoval]

Is there a link between hair length and age?
At CH mine was down past my shoulders (I was scared sh*tless of pegleg and his clippers!), now it is cut with clippers at home.
My wife has hers short and yet our daughter has long ringlet hair to the small of her back. Brushing it is fun.......NOT

[J.R.]

It's amazing how hair length changed with the times, fashions, AND headmasters.

C.M.E. Seaman would never allow hair over the collar and I think things changed when he retired.

You've only got to go through the various House photo's.

[sejintenej]

Daughter and self have got to the point of "annual" haircuts... It means you can work out what you like each year! She normally has her's cut in July / August - I broke with tradition this year and had an extra one as I had got to that "in between" stage (I guess only us Girls will know about that!!) so had it lopped again!

Robert used to sit on his for many years.
Today I had my summer cut - scissors, razor then thinning scissors then eyebrows trimmed then blowdry (she had only sprayed it before cutting). My head is now cold and my hair changed colour from grey to paper white. Very attractive young French lass ....

Next one in December probably - an English divorcee of a certain age who is a friend of my wife .....

[UserRequestedRemoval]

We were not supposed to be able to have long hair, infact you could get drills for long hair but it was better to risk the drill than visit Pegleg. I think I would rather have seen Sweeney Todd than Pegleg and his apprentices