Skegness Magazine

BILL hangs up his scissors and comb after 61 years (2003)
Barber Bill Brown retires this weekend after 61 years in the business.
THE end of an era will be marked as one of Skegness’ well known characters prepares to retire.
Bill Brown, the Algitha Road-based barber, is set to retire after 61 years of cutting hair.
Bill’s career started in 1942 when, as a 14 year old apprentice at Sayers, Lumley Road, Skegness, he earned just five shillings a week.
When his mother Charlotte took over Dewsburys on Lumley Road, a year later he and elder sister Edna, a women’s hairdresser, joined her.
The family ran this business until the shop was sold in 1967 and Bill moved into a new shop on part of the site which now houses Wilkinson.
In 1986 with the Hildreds development looming he moved to his present premises in Algitha Road.
He said: “I was 57 then and never thought I would be here for this long – but here I am.”
When Bill started cutting hair he charged just threepence and provided a wet shave for threepence, a service which has since become redundant. He now charges just £2.50 a cut.
Looking around the shop you can see the second hand 1930s’ chair which he still uses and which he assured was very comfortable.
Over the years his customers have come back time after time and as the years passed they took their sons and, in time, grandsons for their haircuts.
Bill now cuts the hair of three generations of some families and still gives chocolate bars to the children and small gifts to customers at Christmas.
He said: “It gives you a bit of a humbling feeling meeting all these people and hearing their stories. You begin to feel like part of their families.”
He has many happy memories to tell of his own childhood, including a lifeboat ride when he was ten years old.
He explained: “I had saved for ages to get the sixpence for a ride. We were taken into the water on a horse drawn carriage and then had to jump into the lifeboat.
“It was one of the greatest things in life, as a boy, to go fora ride in the lifeboat.”
He also recalled visits to the old Arcadia Theatre to see artistes including as Diana Dors.
One not so happy memory was when as a 13-year-old he was inside the Tower Cinema as it was bombed during the war.
He explained: “I was inside with one of my friends, Doug Willis, who is now an electrician. We didn’t know what had happened at first.
“I just remember looking up and the screen went black. There was a large hole in the roof – it was snowing inside the cinema.”
He also talks fondly of his yearly trips to see his family in London on Christmas morning, with a car laden with presents and giving a lift to the odd party-goer who had a few too many drinks and missed the last bus home.
Over the years he has also been a member of the boys’ brigade, a member of the Legionnaires Club and secretary for the snooker league for 25 years.
He also organised regular football competitions for local lads.
Bill was just seven when he moved to Skegness in 1935 with his, mum Charlotte, dad Cyril and sisters Edna and Vera.
He said: “Skegness has always been a very friendly town and has treated me and my family very well.
“There is nowhere else I have ever wanted to live and I have no plans to ever leave the town.”
With the lease on the shop coming to an end on Saturday, he said: “I have got to go now. The lease is finishing and I am too old to start again.”
Although he has not made any plans for his retirement, he says he will probably just ‘potter about’ and take the opportunity to visit his family in London.

Photo by Paul Gooch