A long love affair with hair
Rose Harding was born to be a hairdresser. She even ran away from home to chase her dream.
FANS of the big hair so fashionable in the 80s who lament its disappearance can relax – it’s making a comeback. That’s according to Woodville hairdresser Rose Harding and she should know – she’s been cutting, waving, colouring, styling and drying for more than 50 years.
‘‘I’ve seen all the fashions come and go, Harding says. ‘‘It’s cyclic. And I can tell you, big hair is on the way back in!
‘‘Sometimes it cracks me up because everything’s done a whole turnaround,’’ she says. ‘‘So it actually was a good time for me to train back then because everything I learnt back then is coming back now – with a different name!’’
Putting different colours through the hair is called foiling these days, while in the 1960s the technique was known as rainbow streaks. And while new styles are coming out daily, keeping ahead of the trends is no problem, Harding says.
‘‘I’ve learnt over time how hair sits and what certain cuts do, and once you’ve got that knowledge you can just look at a picture and work out how you’re going to get that look.’’
Harding says she was born to be a hairdresser. She certainly started early, growing up in the small Tararua settlement of Maharahara before moving with her family to Woodville.
‘‘Ever since I could walk and talk I wanted to do hair,’’ she says. ‘‘I used to set my own hair in rollers from the age of 6 or 8. And then I can remember hacking the hair off all my dolls. What made me want to do it? I wouldn’t have a clue – I liked anything that was arty, and the only other thing I would have wanted to be was an artist.’’
At 15, Harding decided she was off to hairdressing school but there was a problem.
‘‘I was set on going, but then Mum said they couldn’t afford it and it just broke my heart,’’ she says. ‘‘So I did the only thing I could think of, and that was run away.’’
After she spent the night in a horse float at a nearby stable, Harding was returned home.
‘‘My name had been on the radio: Rosemary, blue bermudas, bright red hair – because I used to dye my hair from a young age – and the cops were out looking for me,’’ she says.
The escapade paid off, Harding says, as money was found to send her to the Modern School of Hairdressing in Palmerston North.
‘‘The rule was I had to work at the Woodville clothing factory for six months first to raise some money,’’ she recalls. ‘‘Then we went shopping for my uniforms – white uniforms – and for my scissors and combs. I was just ecstatic!’’
It was a six-month course, but Harding only did four – ‘‘I was somewhat ahead of the others’’ – and someone approached the school looking for a manager of a salon in Ashhurst.
‘‘I was put straight in as manager of a salon while the owner put me through my apprenticeship as well,’’ she says. ‘‘I was just over 15 and a half – not even 16!’’
The owner had a string of salons – in Ashhurst, Bulls and Pahiatua – and Harding was manager at both the Ashhurst and Bulls branches, before joining her boss in the Pahiatua salon, marrying and having a baby. But she kept on working.
‘‘In those days, when you had a baby they kept you in the hospital for 10 days, so I was doing the nurses’ hair, in the maternity annex,’’ she recalls.
Harding moved to Turangi and worked from home for some time, before the family moved again, this time to Dannevirke where she started working in a local salon. But there was a bit of conflict with the boss.
‘‘We were taught that you never ever repeat anything anyone says to you, and I’ve always stuck to that,’’ Harding explains.
‘‘One day a client had opened her heart to the boss, and then I heard my boss repeat that to another client, so I told a senior there that I didn’t think it was right.’’
The next morning Harding was given her notice. Angry and upset, she went to see her husband at the time, who was working as a mechanic next door. ‘‘He just laughed,’’ she says. ‘‘He said it didn’t matter, because there was a salon down the road for sale that I could buy and start my own business.’’
Harding’s new business boomed. ‘‘We built an archway into the next building as well, and people used to be waiting out on the street.’’
That business was eventually sold, with Harding working variously from home while she raised children and in salons in Hastings before making the move back to Woodville.
Soon Harding was back in business, sharing premises with another hairdresser. ‘‘It got very busy – too many clients and not enough room,’’ she says. ‘‘So I rented out where I am now and Elva [the other hairdresser] came as well – she brought her business and I had mine.’’
That was 28 years ago, and the salon is still going strong. There are five chairs, each operated by a hairdresser who has her own clientele and pays Harding a rental fee.
‘‘They’re running their own business but we do work together like a team. It’s just like a family, to be honest,’’ she says.
Having reached retirement age, Harding won’t be hanging up the scissors any day soon.
‘‘I still love it,’’ she says. ‘‘I know one day I’ve got to let it go but who knows when? It’s only just now that I’ve decided to walk out of the salon at 4 o’clock and leave the others to it, and I’ll only have one late night.
‘‘Every now and then I hear this little voice saying ‘Rose, I’m so proud of you it wasn’t for nothing’. My parents were on the bones of their arse but somehow got a loan for me to have my dream. And I think to myself, ‘I haven’t let you down mum’. And I haven’t.
‘‘How do you explain how much love you have for a job? It’s making people feel better – I love that.
‘‘If you get someone who comes in, they’re a bit sad and they walk in with their head down, you can tell there’s something going on. But you do your job and they walk out with a smile on their face – wow! That’s it!’’