Until the age of seven, I thought the whole world smelled like Brylcreem and sandalwood. I thought all a man needed was his hair wax, and that Millwall and West Ham were not just football teams but sacred philosophical entities perpetually at war with one another. Because my dad, Angelo, is a barber, and because I spent the better part of my youth and teens in his shop, these scents and these fervently held (and absolutely correct) beliefs get me going in an emotional way, enhanced as they are by my longing to return to a shop, to its chatter and scents, after a long lockdown.

Like most barbers, my dad (and my mum, who also cuts hair) is dusting off his kit and opening up again, which is great for the quarantine Chewbaccas among us. But my great hope is that the shop’s secondary purpose, as a place men leave not only with a slick haircut, but with a sense of community, of value and pride in themselves, returns with it.

As I see it, the barber has a few roles in your community, cutting hair being just one of them. He or she is your confidante, whose ear and advice you seek; he or she is your “guy who knows a guy” type of concierge; and he or she may even be your friend. The trust between a man and his barber can be explained by the level of faith it requires to have a stranger hold scissors mere inches from your neck while asking how little Johnny’s exams went. And perhaps that is why the set-up is so similar the world over – because we got the recipe of intimacy and service, comfort and familiarity just right – in London, Brooklyn, Singapore and Kinshasa, as though it were an ancient global network with shared rules and codes. And maybe this is why seeking out a haircut, whether with your trusted guy (or gal) or on new ground feels so familiar. 

Now, though, in our new normal, whether we are still in some stage of lockdown, or another phase of reopening, a barber’s role and behaviour, like so much else in our lives, must change. My dad is, of course, having to revise his safety regimen, above and beyond even the precautions he has been ramping up over the last 35 years. A global pandemic will do that. 

In the aftermath of a pandemic that shuts us up in our homes alone with the internet and its digital warrens of faux intimacy, “the barbershop’s return is essential,” says Mr Tom Chapman, a barber by trade. “It will always create a safe space for those who need it.” After a friend took his own life, Mr Chapman started The Lions Barber Collective charity to encourage men to discuss their feelings at the shop, and bring wider mental health awareness to people everywhere. “The hair industry has always had that role in society beyond cutting hair,” he says. “Barbers are great listeners, and the conversations never extend beyond the shop”.

These conversations are beginning to return. In sunny Southern California, barbers have adapted to the new normal by cutting hair outside. In New York City, Mr Herman James has taken his trade to Central Park. He offers free haircuts to passers-by in the hopes it will bring about “a little normalcy”. Most barbers are aware of the extra service they provide to locals, which is why they’re used to having people pop in for a chat only, to drop off boxes of fruit, or to catch up on the weekend’s big game. But that won’t be happening today. 

At Angelo’s The Barbers, my dad sets to work. He places a large pile of gloves by the sink, applies hand sanitizer like it’s cologne, and begrudgingly puts on one of those windscreen-like visors. The shop is open for business. Walk-ins are a no-no; you can only enter if you’ve booked online. The waiting bench, the shop’s social campfire, is sparse. The way a barbershop waiting bench is organised, where most customers are sat beside each other for at least 15 minutes – while the barber masterfully leads them into the wider conversation – means strangers are forced to speak to each other. Try to think of another place where men from all backgrounds are encouraged to meet this way (without drinking alcohol). 

Back in the before times, I’d take up a spot on the bench next to the magazines after school and devour the tabloid cartoons or R-rated issues of Max Power. Seated beside me throughout the afternoon would be a steadily shifting stream of men (and mothers) who made up the community. A single day in the shop and you meet a year’s worth of people. 

We talk a lot about masculinity these days, the toxic kind in particular; but I think the barbershop is where the best of masculinity happens. The vicar who dropped in was always convivial with T, who was open about his homosexuality. They would agree and disagree on various things, but there was nothing to worry about – nothing like what we now recognise and rightly call out as being toxic. In the barbershop, I only saw empathy and respect for the next person on the bench. 

I could tell you about the time I saw a gentleman threaten suicide, before being embraced and hugged by other customers. I could tell you about my dad, who offered the homeless food and free haircuts, spending half an hour speaking to them as though they were any other customer (I admire him deeply, but on that day, deeply-deeply). I could tell you about the everyday, blue-collar guys, and the crooks with gold teeth talking to big-time CEOs in Huntsman suits, or ex-champion boxers (who would pretend to fight me until it ended with my leap of triumph).

We had a duke who always asked for a “short-back-and-sides”. He could have gone to the fancy, private places in Mayfair, but he liked Dad’s shop, because here he could debate a celebrity drug scandal with two cockney electricians, pore over tabloid newspapers and utter a slight profanity, and not a single person cared. The bench is not always “politically correct”, my dad stresses, but it is the great leveller, and provides some form of therapy. 

Barbers today are, of course, seating everyone 2m apart, and with PPE and face masks becoming both a metaphorical and literal barrier to conversation, the once lively room is now hushed. In the UK, the government has advised barbers only to speak to their customers via a mirror and to quickly exit when their session is up. But as soon as someone sits in Dad’s chair, the floodgates rip open and feelings gush out. You realise men need this moment, and my dad, as charming, curious, and empathetic as he is, provides it for them. 

Even though I wish things were precisely as they were before, “important conversations are still being had”, adds Mr Chapman. “Barbers are asking: how was the lockdown for you? It will be talked about for a long time.” True enough, in Dad’s shop the big topic of 2020 resounds, with each customer giving us the update on their experiences, and on the prevailing conspiracy theories. Their opinions are met with nodding or disagreement from fellow customers. When the virus is reduced to barbershop speak, and five minutes later you’re discussing Ms Mary Berry’s recipe for Scotch eggs, our present world and our personal experiences within it stop being Black Mirror-scary and become somehow bearable. 

That’s the kind of relief, strength, solidarity and comfort your local barbershop provides. If you just speak about things, as barbers around the world well understand, you make better sense of them – even if it’s with the stranger beside you. As for my dad, I watch him brush off the first bits of scattered hair from the apron. The customer observes himself in the mirror. There he sees my dad, the man he recognises from way back in pre-Covid January: a friendly face from normal times, when he did normal things – like getting his hair cut. When he arrived, the customer had the bewildered look of an “isolator”. In the chair, he is an isolator no more. Dad brushes off the final pieces of hair. The customer goes out into the world as himself again.