By Jacqueline Elmore

The barber shop business has long played a significant role in the male grooming experience. Its origins date as far back as the middle ages where they used to perform routine surgeries and even dentistry. Today, the barber shop is still seen as an important social space, providing customers with a safe place to meet, to relax and enjoy a bit of hearty conversation while having the latest buzz cut. Throughout the pandemic, hairdressing salons, stylists and barber shops worked hard to keep their customers groomed, coiffured and everything in between, but with strict lockdown measures firmly in place, getting a short back and sides was not always an easy task. Now some six months later, with the lifting of restrictions, having a professional rescue your hair from a fate worse than doom is no longer the problem; it’s getting that appointment.

As local barber Jimmy Philippou explains: “After we reopened in April, it was crazy. Our regular customers returned in their droves and we ended up taking on a number of new clients too. And even now as the weather gets colder and we approach Christmas, things are still just as busy, if not busier.” Jimmy who owns Jimmy’s barber shop in both Cuckfield and Haywards Heath advertises his business as a place with old fashioned values where you will be given a warm welcome and a fresh haircut. “That’s exactly what we want to portray; a place where people feel at home, relaxed and well looked after. That’s what a barber shop experience should be about; care of your customers.”

Jimmy is a South London lad who was born and raised in Streatham. When he was seven his parents moved the family to Brighton to set up a fish and chip shop and the flat above it became his home. He attended a local school and went to Hairdressing College in Brighton. “Even back then when I was doing the course I knew that is was barbering that I wanted to do. In my second year I got lucky and was offered the chance to become an apprentice in a salon in Portslade. It was an old ladies salon and the guy who had taken it over wanted me to do the old ladies’ perms and wash off the tints, but I just wanted to do men’s hair. We eventually came up with an agreement where he would work with the ladies and I would work with the men.” Jimmy remained at the Portslade salon for 18 months to help gain enough experience to allow him to move on to a place where he could cut men’s hair professionally full time. “I ended up in a relatively well known barber shop in Haywards Heath, which funnily enough both my brother and my sister worked for too, but in different locations, so it worked out really well. I stayed there for ten years until I finally got the chance to open up my own barber shop on South Road in 2009.”

Three years ago Jimmy opened a barber shop in Cuckfield. “I found out that the old barber shop was looking for a buyer. It was the one that I’d always loved, in the village that I’d always loved. There was a sign outside with a mobile number that I left a message on and six weeks later they returned my call and said ‘are you still interested in buying the shop’ and that was that. I opened the shop in 2018.” The building that Jimmy now owns is Grade II listed and dates back to the 16th century. Paper records show that in 1968 Roy Herbert Francis, a gentleman’s barber, took out a 14 year lease and that the existing deeds go back to 1926. “I inherited quite a few of John’s old customers and that’s been lovely. The people here have been consistently warm and welcoming. We always try to get involved in village life as much as possible and that often means going to the school fetes, Christmas markets, village fairs and helping to support some of the local charities.” As far as the pandemic is concerned, Jimmy has his feet firmly on solid ground. Like so many others, that was a difficult time for him, but in the face of it all, he still managed to find that silver lining.