Reminiscing again over a Soho haircut
Having opened 34 years ago Jack's Haircuts has become a Soho institution
Everytime I venture into Soho, usually to get my haircut at Jack’s on Old Compton Street, the same thoughts go through my mind.
‘Hasn’t the area changed since I used to frequent it on an almost daily basis’.
‘Even though it was sleazy, and partly run-down, wasn’t it better, back then…. throughout the 80s? Even into 90s?’
Jack cut my hair again on Saturday. His shop Jacks Haircuts is almost a Soho institution, having been at the Tottenham Court Road end of the famous Soho street for 34 years now.
I’ve known Jack for a good few decades now. He’s far too discreet to let on, but people have told me through the years that he’s had quite an impressive client list for his trade.
Paul Simonon, once of the Clash, was kind enough to give Jack a shout out as his favourite hairdresser in a recent interview in the Evening Standard.
Along with the French House, the Algerian coffee shop around the corner, Bar Italia, the Groucho, Jack’s shop is one of the last remaining businesses of a Soho that once fascinated me.
It still has the feel of a classic barbers shop, once you’ve made your way through the thin doorway, and down the narrow wooden stair case.
There used to be a rival hairdressers in Soho called Cuts that I once also went to. But we don’t mention that.
Growing up in the north London suburbs I couldn’t wait to jump on the 29 bus to travel up to the West End, where I’d venture in to Soho and admire people wearing Levi 501 Selvage Red line jeans and Bass Weejun loafers in a way I failed to pull off.
Aged 17, after being knocked back by the doorman on at least two previous occasions, I finally got let into the Wag Club.
Many a door in Soho would allow me inside in the years that followed, where I would meet and befriend Jewish hustlers, Black hustlers, gay hustlers, straight gangsters, and several people no longer with us along the way.
Eventually, I recognised that if I wanted to have any sort of career, or family, I could not carry on using Soho like I had done for over a decade.
Which is probably why I now get so much joy from venturing into the area once a month to get my hair cut at Jack’s.
Soho is a very different beast today.
On some days I think the gentrication - the death of the area’s sleazy sex trade, the booming new restaurants, often with familiar chain names, the streets full of tourists - is a good thing.
On other days I reminisce about the old days, the late nights, the drinking dens, reading the newspapers early in the morning in Bar Italia, falling asleep on the 29 bus travelling home.
Having not taken photographs of these times, and in an age without mobile phones and cameras, I actually have very little documentary evidence of my life at that time.
Which is probably why I enjoy reminiscing about old times with Jack every time he cuts my hair.
Thankfully, like much of Soho on a sunny summer’s Saturday, there are plenty of others wanting to get their haircut in his shop that day.
“It’s going OK at the moment, but it can be hard at times” says Jack, of his near three-and-a-half decade old business.
Especially when many people in London need only walk five minutes minutes outside their door these days to find a cut price barbers shop willing to cut their hair for under a tenner.
The price of a haircut in Soho is compounded by the added costs of rent and proper wages for staff. (Although Jack’s prices still remain on the reasonable side).
There are still few places better to be working in, than in Soho, we both agree.
I ask Jack if he thinks there’s still another side to Soho, away from its modern commercial image, in which young people still flock to dive bars and clubs, in the same way we once did?
“We wouldn’t know mate,” he replies, and we both start laughing.