Jim’s final trim after 64 years in the trade
AHAIRDRESSER who was labelled ‘the finest barber in town’ has spoken of his fond memories and sadness after being forced to retire.
Jim Hartley, who will be 80 later this month, has hung up his trimming scissors for good after closing his Waterfoot shop last March at the onset of pandemic restrictions.
He said he had to shut suddenly one Friday due to Covid, and wanted to have the chance to thank his long-standing customers at his shop James Hartley Barbers, for their loyal trade over decades.
Jim, who entered the trade as a 15-year-old apprentice at a shop further along Bacup Road at number 711, said: “I felt guilty at not stopping long enough to say thank you to my customers. There was nothing I could do about it. I just wanted to say goodbye and thank you for the trade over the years. Some of [my customers] are 80 or 90 years old, and have been coming to me all this time.”
Jim, who has been married to Irene for nearly 60 years, recalled how he was ‘thrown in the deep end’ after his boss – famed hairdresser Mr Bacigalupo – was absent from work following an accident. His first tentative steps in hairdressing are even affectionately recalled in a 2005 poem by a customer.
“I started in Waterfoot in 1956 when I was 15,” said Jim. “You had to watch and see what they did. After my boss had a bit of an accident I was thrown in the deep end to look after the shop and do the best I could.
“The customers understood and they were very obliging. If you made a mistake they didn’t pay you!”
Jim said when he started out in the trade as a teenager they would charge roughly a shilling and ninepence for a cut, and his week’s wages would be around one pound, seven shillings and sixpence.
After finding his feet, he developed a real passion for the profession and opened his own business at number 584 in 1973.
Throughout the decades, the hairdressing profession has been influenced by changes in taste, fashion, culture and even working patterns – with busier hours in the past dictated to by shift workers’ breaks.
“When I started my hairdressing career it was the teddy boy era; a marvellous era to create all these teddy boy hairstyles,” Jim remembered.
“You had to create them and it was very entertaining. Every head of hair was different.
“It was wonderful to bring a head of hair to life and know that you’ve done a good job so that they come back. Cutting someone’s hair and dressing it as it should be, you get a lot of pleasure out of it.
“People feel special, and you’ve achieved something.”
He also recalls the “recession” caused by The Beatles, with customers growing their hair for “18 months” at a time.
“You took notice of the parents in them days, but it was costing me money!” he said.
On one memorable occasion, Jim endured a “nerve-wracking” experience at the shop one dark, winter night, with an attempted armed robbery.
“A lad came through the door while I was sat down writing,” he said. “He bobbed his head around, went away and five minutes later he was masked up and had a gun in his hand. He points this gun at me. You couldn’t tell if it was real or not. I said ‘ what comics have you been reading?’”
Jim said the raider eventually disappeared after he ran at him, armed with a piece of wood!
As his years advanced, Jim, who will be 80 on June 19, would just work mornings to make his workload more manageable, but the shop’s closure has still left a big hole in his life – which he tries to fill with photography and walking his little dog.
In a poem paying tribute to Jim’s first hairdressing effort, Ronnie Spencer begins: “I know a man in Waterfoot. He’s a gentleman of renown. He’s been working there nearly 50 years. The finest barber in town. That’s right you’ve certainly guessed it. James Hartley is his name. He learnt his trade from Bacigalupo. A then noted barber of fame. I’ll never forget, Jim was only a lad. And ‘Baci’ was off work you see. I’d gone in for a hair cut, just a trim. And Jim said ‘I’m sorry, there’s only me’.”