The demon barbers of Kings Heath

And everywhere else, in Andy Munro’s experience.

With the Prime Minister giving the go-ahead for haircuts (and just about everything else, it seems), I wasted no time in visiting one of the couple of barbers that I use,in this case in Kings Heath.

During the lockdown, the missus had kept my locks down, but only to the extent of a Peaky Blinder-style shave around the ears. So I arrived at the said barbers with what can only be described as a Patrick Moore hair design, partly because of her reticence to go anywhere near my bald spot and to be honest it was a reluctance that I shared.

Maybe it’s me but at the last half a dozen barbers that I’ve been to over the past twenty years, the bloke cutting my hair has been slightly to the right of Adolf Hitler in their general views. On arrival, the waiting area was almost full and whilst the barber was using disposable sheets to wrap around his customers’ shoulders, there wasn’t a face mask in sight (apart from mine, incidentally).

As they usually are in a barber’s discussions were wide-ranging and it soon became clear that the barber and waiting customers were not fans of the Black Lives Matter campaign. This was much to the embarrassment of the black ‘Saturday boy’ (in fairness, his own words) helping out with cleaning and tea making.

To be fair, it was a decent haircut but the price had strangely increased from £12 pre-COVID to 15 quid post-lockdown. And that was the second reason for me not giving the usual tip. If there’s a socialist barber out there (or even someone slightly left of centre) then let me know because I’ve yet to meet them.