1969 Onwards

It is now 1969, I am working in the city of Hull, famous at the time for it's Fishing Industry, Hull was a troubled city then, as is now, the reason was that nearly the whole of the city relied on the industry of fishing, then with cut-backs, industrial action, the cold war, it was on a fast down-turn. I went to work at a City-Centre Salon called 'Paulines' of King Edward Street, this was a massive culture shock for me, as I had lived on the coast and my apprenticiship was formed in my home town of Withernsea, but after two years, Susan Lear (my talented boss), decided it was best for both of us to part company and finish my apprenticiship elsewhere as we had a massive personality clash:

I wonder whether it was to do with; Deena (my senior and still very good friend) and I decided to mimick the advert for Newfarm Eggs, this was 4 hens in a row, singing "Always ask for Newfarm, Newfarm eggs, fresh from the farm for you" -( I have looked on uTube for a link, but it's not out there, sorry), so there we were trouping this song down the full length of the salon, in front of all the customers, when Susan walked in!!!! or was it my impressions of Pete Cook and Dudley Moore, Hilda Baker, Morecombe and Wise or The full Monty Python Sketch that was on the TV the night before, I don't know why really she was upset as the customers loved it........except the posh ones and Susan loved the posh ones.

So Pauline introduced me to her 32 staff!!!!!! that each was assigned to her work station and wall hairdryer - we were allocated 7 mins per combout and 5 mins per set, I found this so hard as I had been taught to put rollers in with no 'root drag', all neat and tidy, infact Deena was the most immaculate, setter and perm winder to learn from, but she did not have the ability to teach, I watched and replkicated her work - Pauline said 'Grab a steel comb and a bottle of 'Bel-Aire' and we'll show you how to do this - I had to back-comb hair vividly in the roots, lock it in and then back-comb the ends so the hair stood vertical, when all the hair was done, I then had to bend the ends over into a roll or barrell, these sat on top of each other to give height. It was a great way to learn how to dress hair in a manufactured-typed way but not the beautiful way I had been taught. I was confused

One lunch time after been paid, I went to Boots Chemist and bought a dusky pink Moulineux hand hair dryer, up till then, they were slow heavy like this image above, so this new light-weight modern hair dryer was brilliant to hold and work with, so I persuaded one of the juniors to have the Quant-look, I worked away in the corner, creating my masterpiece, after cutting it, I blow-dried it using brushes as I has seen this on a programme about Vidal Sassoon, Wow, what a feeling to think I could do this, all the staff, slowly came back from lunch admiring this new total-look, but when Pauline herself walked, she hit the roof with excitement "Did you do this?", yes I was pleased to say, she said things are about to change, I'll get the builders in, and we'll create a corner of the salon that is modern and fashionable, and she did, this was 'my area' for youth and creativity'.

The 1970's was strange period in my life as I had 'found my feet', spoke up for mysef and was a stylist as good as the rest, so when I got married in 1974, I moved to York and went to work in the most famous salon of it's time at Mason Lee's, the owner Jack Lee, was tall, handsome debonair, a small thin 'tache and always had pretty young girls around him, as well as Mary, his wife.

He was a showman, he lead, others followed. He used to throw Pool Parties and you can imagine the life-style that went with it. Jack gave me the opportunity to work at his Cut and Blow Dry Salon in Coney Street, this was called 'Mopps', Graham was the manager and was a great stylist, this was the first time I could look up to someone for inspirational ideas. Michael Aldritch was the manager at Mason Lee, and one night he asked anyone to stay behind if they were interested in a photo shoot, so I did. I created my first Wedge haircut on one of the staff and they shot it in black and white, this photo adorned the walls of the salon and was published in HJ, our trade magazine, this gave me the greatest buzz and confidence, I'm glad I took this direction as 'Afro Perms' came in to fashion and the new 'stack winding', I hated perming, so I carried on in the cutting dpartment.

Until.........1976, the hottest summer of the decade and I chose to have my first child in September, all I wanted was a daughter, my husband was not bothered, so I kept hoping my dreams were fulfilled as I would have the baby in September and be back at work in December, until September 14th 1976 and Adelle Mary was born, how beautiful my child was, yes she was a breach, which means no distortion, she was dark, black hair, brown eyes and perfect as she still is to this day. This changed me completely, I did not want to go to work, I wanted to stay at home, learn to be a good mum and wife and adapt to rural-living, this was helped with a friend called Jackie in the village, she taught me all sorts from baking bread, making Jam, casseroles, how to grow plants etc, the list is endless but was great to have someone like that as I did not want to be away from Adelle at all, my late friend Christine from Burnley once said, you only have your children 'on-loan', before you know it, they will be gone, and now sadly Christine has departed but her wisdom stays with me. Adelle is a writer and it is her who has persuaded me to write this blog, I told her I'm not good enough, but she insists that I put down what's in my head, so i hope it's going OK.

I carried on hairdressing at home, as mother said in her early comments, doing my friends, their mum's, ladies from 'play-school' etc, this kept my interested ans earned a fair bit of cash. By 1978 we bought a new house and the interset rates rose enourmously in 3 months to I think about 15-16%, so the extra money was handy.