Getting my hair cut

I've always felt nervy when I decide to get a hair cut - I'm never been able to say exactly how I want my hair to be cut - there were times when I decided just to go for a Number Three cut - I thought I then looked like a fearless Soviet tank commander - I could see the photograph in Red Star - I would be pictured looking out of the turret of my T34 - my squadron would have just liberated one of those beautiful doomed cities in Poland - members of my family were not so sure -

I decided, therefore, to go for a milder look - I wanted to look like a sensitive apparatchik - I knew that I did not want to be shamed by a shaggy rug - nor did I wish, in certain lights, to look like a contract killer -

When I was a skinny boy, living in Malta, I had fierce crew cuts - back home in England, I would go once a month, to the gents' barbers almost opposite our house in Palmyra Road - Mr Lambourne wore a white coat, and handled the sharp pointy scissors with fascinating precision -

Time always seemed to go weird when Mr Lambourne gossiped with his adult customers - I would stare at the packets of razor blades and the tubs of Brylcreem - copies of the Daily Express would tell you why you had to vote conservative -

I found this barbers tucked away off old Poole High Street - I felt guilty slipping inside there - my usual place for a haircut is Paul's in Wareham - it's like a gentleman's club - Paul can tell you an anecdote about anything - from the problem of there being too many Vespas in Sorrento - to the folly of landscaping a roundabout outside Wareham with a replica of a Saxon Sword -