Haircuts, 1930s, by Cliff Stokes

From MemoryArchive

Who: Cliff Stokes
What: Haircuts
When: 1930s
Where :Toronto Ont Can

Despite the fact that we were in the middle of a severe economic depression, we still tried to keep up appearances. If anyone's hair started to look a bit shaggy, then a remark might be made, such as, "You had better get a haircut, or a violin!" Long hair was associated with "highbrow" musicians, or other "eccentics". Working class peoples always had short hair, unless they were really, really lower class workers, in which case I guess it didn't matter. In any case, despite the fact that my father wasn't working and we were on what was then called, "relief", (now called "welfare"), we still didn't consider we were in the lower bracket of society. I remember one time my hair was getting long and my Dad brought his friend Harry Tyre over with his hair cutting equipment. Haircuts by barbers were expensive in those days, in the mid '30s. Adults were charged 25 cents and children 15 cents. My dad tried to coerce me into letting Mr Tyre cut my hair but I resisted. Finally he said, "If you let Harry cut your hair, then I will give you a nickel. I got the nickel and I got what I had expected, a very uneven, half shingled cut. I think that I was eleven or twelve and my opinion of myself, already low, sunk a little lower. A few years later I started work and had to pay 25 cents for my haircuts, I changed barbers though, the one that I had been going to and paying 15 cents to, was still giving me a child's haircut despite me paying the full adult price! (no trimming around the ears, shaving the neck, no smelly hair lotion!)

A few years later, at age eighteen, I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force. We travelled by train from Toronto to Edmonton and as we arrived at the base we were yelled and hooted at by the "Old Timers", "Wait 'til you get your haircut!" they shouted. I wasn't worried, my hair had always been quite short, but it was now 1943 and many of the recruits still sported long hairy sideburns, (and they weren't even violin players!)