My Grandfather was William Schink, an immigrant from Hamburg and a master hairdresser. Like him, my father followed that trade, first as a lather boy, apprenticed to a South London barber. His role was to prepare customers for their daily shave.
He was later to find employment at Harrod's where he was to stay until the late 1950's. The gentlemen's salon was a vast and gleaming underground chamber with 40 chairs. My father had many regular clients who would call perhaps for a morning shave or often for a weekly trim. Being Harrod's these included company directors, politicians, television personalities and even a spy!.
For some years my father and some colleagues ran a small business visiting boarding schools providing haircuts for the pupils. The photograph above, at Harrow school shows my father in the centre. The dark suited man is the housemaster.
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