Eddies - A letter written to a man asking if I had photos of the old Windsor Hotel, Pembroke, or of the barber shop of that establishment.

  I don't have any photos of either the old Windsor Hotel in Pembroke or of  Eddies barbershop but I do have memories of both. As a shy young boy in the fifties Eddies was my window, my introduction to the world of men. I would go up the steps of that old hotel, walk past the reception desk and lobby where invariably sat a guest reading a paper, past the smoke shop and down the hall to the barbershop where I would enter in to one of the mysteries and delights of the adult world. 

   Here was Eddy as I remember him. A large man standing by his chair, always with a customer having  his hair cut and one or two others waiting their turn. As often as not there was one old man sitting, not wanting service, just there to pass the time of day by chatting with Eddie or with the other customers. It was not unusual in those days to have one of the waiting men to pass his turn in the chair so he could sit a while longer and talk with Eddy or the other lads of a certain age before heading home to women and chores and things to be done. Or perhaps postponing going home to a lonely room which may have been just up the stairs as the Windsor rented inexpensive rooms by the month.    

  This, to me was all a bit foreboding but enticing. I lived a “Leave It To Beaver” sort of life then, of middle class normality, of sit down suppers at the dinner table, of church on Sunday and a dog waiting at home for my return from school. A polite world where bad things never happened. 

Just entering into the hotel was, in my mind, stepping away from that world. Eddy's barbershop had the hint of cigar smoke mixed with the smells of talc and spicy aftershave that'd be splashed on his hands and rubbed on the face and neck of a freshly barbered customer. There were chairs covered in red leatherette and spittoons and a large centre table with magazines to read while you waited. Oh those magazines. These were things never seen in my home or the homes of anyone I ever knew. True Detective, True Crime, Argosy and all that ilk with lurid covers of  crime scene photos or staged scenes, invariably of a woman with the back  of one hand stifling a scream while the other fends off a man with a five o'clock shadow and lust in his heart. And the newspapers, no New York Times here. Here were more crime stories, boxing and wrestling horrors of bloodied faces and mangled bodies all printed on yellow or pink newsprint. 

There were posters on the wall of past teams for the Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadians where the players, now of legend, would be posed with the Stanley Cup. 

The ads too, for Clubman Talc and aftershave, Wildroot Hair tonic, Brylcreem – a little dab'll do ya! - and although I don't recall I hope there was at least one calendar with a picture of a pretty girl demurely displaying more of her charms than my mother would have approved.

Eddy's was the only place I have ever seen, outside of the movies, a man with his face wrapped in a hot towel, awaiting a shave. And then the preparation for that shave as the straight razor was honed to a gleam on a long leather strop, as lather was whipped up in a mug and generously applied to the face and neck of the waiting man and then the first swipe as that thin blade scraped away lather and whiskers and was wiped clean on a fresh towel draped over an arm.

I liked going to Eddy's because even though I was a boy he was never condescending, never talked to you as other than man to man. Leaving there I always felt I was one of the boys in a club I didn't understand all the rules for yet but bit by bit I was learning.

 There are three barbershops of note in my life. A small place on a back street of Swansea, Wales where Dickens would have felt at home, a chair outside on a cobbled lane in Xilitla, Mexico and Eddy's.

They say we live on until all memory of us has faded. Well, Eddie, long past on and the old Windsor Hotel, long since burnt to the ground still exist, still are there, if only in my memory.