This was more than just a well overdue haircut

Haircuts, or at least their results, have long been an object of fascination for humans, but until this week I had no idea they could be such a boost to mental health. I felt, figuratively if not entirely literally, lighter.

Then again, the crazy times we’re living through have done a lot to change our perceptions.

Haircuts are strange, often faddriven things. I remember the fascination with the Purdey cut sported by Joanna Lumley in The New Avengers in the late 1970s, interesting since it was essentially a bowl cut. Elevenyear-old me didn’t mind that, besotted with her fascinating character, though the acting seems incredibly wooden now.

For a couple of heady years in the early 1980s, a British new wave group called Haircut One Hundred rode high on the charts. The name rather outlived the band, but four UK top 10 singles in two years, including Fantastic Day in 1982, means they were a lot more than one-hit wonders.

It took moving to this part of the world for me to fully grasp the use of ‘‘haircut’’ as a piece of sporting slang, like a drubbing. I was slow on the uptake.

In the 1990s, before rugby was officially professional, I was working for the South African Press Association and interviewed the manager of New South Wales (they weren’t the Waratahs yet) on the phone about a Super 10 game they’d flown in for.

‘‘We want to win this bloody game. We haven’t come all this way for a haircut!’’ he declared at one point. I didn’t ask him to elaborate, but I had erroneous visions of New South Wales’ finest lining up outside a Johannesburg barber shop.

Early in lockdown, my daughter sent me a video from Facebook of a woman frustrated with her hair’s unruliness, who decided to try to chop it off with the only implement she had to hand, a bread knife. I watched as far as her first attempt to saw off the length of her ponytail, which predictably ended with just a few severed strands of hair in her hand, and I couldn’t look anymore. Her struggle with the upheaval we were all going through was real, and raw, and her follicular frustration seemed symbolic of something deeper. I truly felt for her.

Home haircuts were something of a social media theme during Levels 4 and 3, and I suspect some barbers and hairdressers are doing running repairs now, although some Kiwis have embraced the growth. It’s good to see National MP Chris Bishop’s mullet being used to raise money for Good Bitches Baking, a charity close to my heart.

I’ve long had a tendency to treat haircuts as an irritation, and leave them until the desperation stage. The fact that I’d already made a couple of unsuccessful attempts to get it done in the busy month before lockdown means I hit Level 4 already in serious need of a haircut.

Things were different in those long weeks, though. I didn’t have to worry about being seen out and about. When I went walking I wore a hat that hid the wildness up top. I even got a kick from going the longest period in my life without a haircut. But as Level 2 approached, I definitely felt the need for a visit to the barber, and last Wednesday, I was on the Facebook page for My Fathers Barbers in Christchurch. Rookie error; they were already booked out until Tuesday.

There are many great barbers around, who do great work dispensing haircuts and pleasant conversation, so I’m not mentioning these guys to boost them above anyone else. It’s just that I stumbled on them in a Google search when new to Christchurch last year, visited, and had my loyalty cemented by their mahi against domestic violence.

I grabbed an evening time slot, after work, and arrived to see a hand sanitiser dispenser just inside the door and barbers in masks. What I mainly arrived to,

Home haircuts were something of a social media theme during Levels 4 and 3, and I suspect some barbers and hairdressers are doing running repairs now, although some Kiwis have embraced the growth.

though, was a thoroughly welcoming atmosphere, in spite of the necessary precautions.

And once I got in that chair and explained what I wanted, it was an amazing experience. My barber, Albany, cutting my hair for the first time, completely took my wish-list on board, and it was wonderful to sit there and appreciate the gentle skill with which he went to work. I felt a little smug at not having resorted to an emergency chop. I’m not sure if it was on my face, but I was certainly smiling inwardly.

The shop has those great barber chairs that swivel right around, so it’s not a case of sitting staring in the mirror as you’re shorn. That allows the barber the easiest angle, and you get to see it when he’s ready to show you. I’ve done a lot of mental secondguessing of barbers while staring directly into mirrors. This felt like a release from that.

But it felt like a release from more, a small symbol of a return to something approaching normality, whatever that elusive concept turns out to be when we’re largely released from the bonds of this pernicious virus. I don’t think I’ll see my next haircut as the irritation I have in the past. In fact, I’ll book well ahead this time.