Toni's

There is a bandstand on Bridgeton Cross in Glasgow - domed, Victorian cast -iron with coloured enamel panels resembling an umbrella. The Salvation army choir would sing there on Sundays and occasional pipe bands during national events. This was a main tramcar hub till about the mid sixties - the junction of 3 main roads becoming a main artery into the city.Kings drive from the west of the river, Dalmarnock road from the power station and London Road.

The "caurs" as they were known sported the city livery of green and yellow or the metropolitan red. their antennae touched the overhead live wires and would frequently send out clouds of bright blue sparks which could be quite dramatic on a wet day..

Dad, my younger brother (also Joe) and I would come into Brig'ton once a month to have a haircut - he had been coming here for years -Toni, an Italian friend would drink in his bar on a Saturday night -it was a logical progression...Dad liked to have a guid haircut - he would panic if he felt it touch his collar - he had naturally nut-brown wavy hair which he never exploited in any way - vanity wasn't his thing.

The entrance to Toni's was on the corner of Landressy street and London Road - an art-deco stone frontage with a huge oak door opened into a tiled foyer with a long dark corridor punctuated by a kiosk halfway. a flight of stone steps curved in a hung spiral forming the roof of the glass kiosk. A lady cashier would sit at a till and take a "tally" from the customer's barber. Dad would always speak as we passed -"hullaw there jessie...ah'v goat 2 we'ans wi' me the day -ye mibbe cannae see frae up there,hen"

"ah see fine, Joe - are ye gettin' them scalped again or jist a wee trim, a wee tidy up an' that?"

"Tony Curtis if they're guid an' Yul Brinner if they're no"

They said practically the same thing every month..

The lights of the salon could be seen behind a glazed double door with frosted and etched glass,keeping its' secrets to the last second - and it wasn't difficult to see why.

when the door was pushed open it always drew a gasp from me - "little" Joe was terrified of everything, so anyone's guess what he thought - for me it was a palace.

The room was double volume - cavernous in fact with a coloured glass lantern light in the ornate ceiling above- the top half of the room and the ceiling were painted wedgewood green with gold filigree vines frescoed in a fringe around the cornice - from countertop to dado ran a polished mirror the full length of 3 walls, reflecting both the coloured glass of the lantern and the festoon of light from 3 brass chandeliers.

The centre of the room had a waiting island of back-to back leather banquettes - a wooden shelf between them had a bronze statue at one end - a little urchin boy with his hands stuck firmly into the pockets of his short and raggedy woollen trousers - he had a thick fringe of pudding basin hair - the expression on his sulking face implying his dismay at being unable to afford to either stay or go - it was always warm in there.

The barbers chairs were black leather - not unlike a dentist chair , infinitely adjustable by use of an hydraulic foot pedal to the perfect height irrespective. Each chair had a leather strop hanging by a hoop - the barbers -anything up to 10 at any point would put an edge on the cut-throats, showing off their dexterity with rapid and death defying speed.

Toni would cut all 3 of us in succession - i always begged to be last so that i may watch, fascinated at the little theatre all around. Toni's chair was plumb centre of the left hand wall so i would have a panoramic view, via the mirrors of these scissorhands at work - the barbers all wore white jackets with coloured ties and tie-pins. they used electric clippers on long trailing flexes and would kick them clear periodically in practised ease.

Foaming bowls of soap for shaving, hot towels from a steel bain-marie, bottles of coloured hair-oils, bay rum and witch-hazel lined the gantry.

I returned there once many years later - the trams had long gone - their final journeys crushing memorial pennies all along the route - the barber pole of red and white sworls had also gone - the place was now a Bookmakers - no doubt the hair revolution of the summer of love put paid to Barbershops like it all over the country. It is embedded in my memory- possibly around 100 visits guaranteeing that tenure.