Keep your head still kid or I’ll be putting your eye out
Posted in General on 30. Jul, 2010
“Keep your head still, kid, or I’ll be putting your eye out.”How still was it necessary to be? Today, in the establishment I frequent, I see old soldiers and retired Cabinet ministers seized with the staggers in the barber’s chair – throwing convulsions, some of them; twitching and jerking like a procession of the palsied on the road to Lourdes – and yet the barber is barely incommoded. Then you were fastened into a sort of monk’s cowl or icing-bag whose primary function was to funnel every last hair down your neck, but which also served to render you immovable.Dare to twitch a finger and the barber made as though he were wielding shears on a lurching deck and could no longer answer for your safety “Want me to take your ear off?” I remember being asked Of course I wanted him to take my ear off I wanted him to take everything off. First you were raised on a little barber’s plank: a contraption which combined the dishonour of the ducking-stool with the mortification of the stocks. This might be another difference between hairdressers and barbers Barbers inspire fear.
But then barbers attend to men, and men are more easily frightened.My own fear of barbers goes back to childhood. Everywhere was embarrassing then, but nowhere was more embarrassing than the barber’s chair Nowhere to hide, you see No way of covering your shame. A barber looks after the whole man.”
It’s because he has suddenly started to make such remarks that I want to talk to you about him.I have always been in awe of barbers. All the women I know hate going to the hairdressers, resent the time they have to spend in there, the small-talk, the expense, the anti-climax of what they look like when they come out But resentment isn’t awe. Or, to be precise about the distinction, they are my hairdressers, but not my barbers. My actual barber explained the difference to me just recently “A hairdresser, Mr Jacobson, looks after the hair. These girls, who look like Maria Callas, call me Heoward and play me Debbie Hairy records They are not my real hairdressers.
He’s got a hairt.” Gordon McCulloch, communist folk singer when he first met Macdonald.No 10 says: “He’s a real achiever and gets things done. He has great drive and huge experience.”The papers say: “Screaming Lord Sutch may be dead, but at least we still have Scheming Lord Gus.” The Herald, Glasgow. I’m worried about my barber Or maybe I’m worried about me in relation to my barber Either way, I want to talk to you about him Me Us. Readers of this column will remember the Greek marsupials who scrunch my hair when I’m in Melbourne. July 1999: appointed Transport Minister.He says of his primary school: “Blood-curdling blue-nose choruses would echo off the red sandstone building designed by the altogether more aesthetic Charles Rennie Mackintosh.”Friends say: “I don’t know what he finds exciting about Blair’s lot at all But he is fiercely loyal to his old pals and comrades. 1986-98: Moves to Scottish Television, eventually becoming chairman.Political career: 1998: ennobled as Baron Macdonald of Tradeston, CBE.
July 1998: appointed Business and Industry Minister in the Scottish Office. 1967-86: Joins Granada Television, edits World in Action, presents Right to Reply, What the Papers Say 1976: Founds the Edinburgh Television Festival. Two daughters, aged 31 and 33.Education: Scotland Street Primary School, Glasgow. Allan Glen’s fee- paying school, Glasgow, left at age 14.Business career: 1963-67: Journalist with Tribune, The Sunday Times and The Scotsman. It may be an insoluble task, but if anyone is primed to succeed, it is Gus Macdonald. His entire career has been that of a wheeler-dealer between the public and private spheres: the perfect background for finding that elusive Third Way to get you to work on time.Life StoryBorn: 20 August 1940 in Larkhill, Lanarkshire.Family: Father, Colin, a stevedore Mother, Jean (nee Livingstone), a cleaner Only child Married Theresa “Teen” McQuaid in 1963. “It wouldn’t surprise me if he has his eye on being Minister for the Isles, when Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland all have one secretary of state,” said one friend.