BRITAIN’S oldest hairdresser who is still chopping away aged 91 says she has no plans to retire anytime soon — after she celebrated 65 years of working in the same salon.
Sprightly Margaret Sherlock opened her salon, Hair By Margaret, in 1956 and still opens four days a week to see her regular customers who come from far and wide.
Saturday marked 65 years to the day since she opened shop and she celebrated by giving a perm to the first customer she ever served, who is now 90.
Incredibly Margaret has only ever shut the salon down once, in 1958 when her son Adrian was born. And according to her daughter, the nonagenarian will keep going until she “physically can’t go on”.
Reflecting on her career, Margaret said: “It’s been lovely, I’ve loved every minute.
“I’ve always had wonderful customers who I’ve got on very well with.
“Lots of them have come back year after year so I know them very well and would consider some more like family.
“They tell me all about their problems.”
The mum-of-two from Chorley, added: “I’m not considering retirement, my customers would be very upset.
“They wouldn’t know where to go if I stopped working.
“And a lot of the younger hairdressers don’t know how to do the styles my customers like.”
The Irish-born former nurse worked alongside her husband Frank until his death at the age of 80 in May 2008.
To this day, she stands on feet for hours on end day after day while tending to her customers, many of whom simply pop in for a cuppa and a chat.
Her mainly elderly clientele come for their weekly shampoo and set, a “dying art” which involves applying setting lotion to hair, putting in rollers and drying gently under vintage hair dryers.
She is also in demand for her perms, which are not so common nowadays.
Daughter Linda Sherlock, 64, who helps out in the salon after retiring from her job as a deputy headteacher, said: “Mum is really busy, what happens is that people will find out about mum’s services and come and get their hair done and then they keep on coming.
“It’s like a family at the salon, it’s great.
“A lot of mum’s customers worry about her retiring but she’s wants to keep going until she physically can’t go on anymore.”
While hairdressing keeps Margaret fit, Linda said her wonderful zest for life also keeps her healthy.
She added: “Some people have a glass-half-full attitude to life, but my mum has a glass that’s brimming over. Her customers do wonder where she gets it from.”
Linda said they had planned to have a tea party to celebrate 65 years of Hair By Margaret but that current restrictions prevented them from doing so.
She added: “It was lovely to mark the occasion with Jean coming in for a perm.”
Margaret completed her hair apprenticeship in Aughnacloy, County Tyrone, Northern Ireland, when she was just 15-years-old.
However, there was little demand for hairdressers so she trained as a nurse in Omagh.
In 1952 she came to England with her sister and they both worked at Eaves Lane Hospital in Chorley, which is now a housing development.
Later she married Frank and when her daughter Linda was born in 1956, she opened the salon in her front room on the day she took her new baby home from hospital.
The business started off in the front room but soon became a proper salon, with the family living upstairs until 1971.
Margaret said: “I only intended to run the salon until Linda went to school but the business grew and Frank joined me in the hairdressing trade.
“When my son Adrian was born in 1962, I decided that I would carry on so that I could be around for both of the children while they grew up.”
Margaret, who still uses the same razor she had when the shop first opened, has seen a lot of popular hairstyles come and go over the years, such as the Princess Diana flicked bob in the 1980s.
She thinks she has stayed a cut above other salons in the area as she treats her customers like a friend, rather than just a client.
And she said that her customers have given her great support right from the first day she opened the salon.
She said: “Customers have been really good - they have really backed me up from day one.
“I now can’t wait to get back to see them.”
Linda Sherlock has recently written a book about her mum’s remarkable life entitled Shampoo and Set: 75 Years as a Hairdresser.
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