Some people are known as having eyes in the back of their heads: Leigh McIntyre has them in the gleam of his scissor blades.
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For 55 years the iconic barber has trimmed the short back and sides of many a Maitland man and boy, but now it’s time to say goodbye.
“You have to pull the pin sooner or later and I’ll be 70 next birthday so I want to travel while I am still capable,” Mr McIntyre said.
“But I’ve heard plenty of stories ... and I’ve told some too.”
Mr McIntyre became a barber in 1958 when he was just 15.
Not keen on school, Mr McIntyre heard about an apprenticeship and decided to give it a shot.
“Someone I knew (former Maitland barber Dougie Lambert) was looking for an apprentice so I went over,” Mr McIntyre said.
“I didn’t want to go to fifth class (as it was known then) so I thought I’d become a barber. My boss told me I wasn’t allowed to play football so I didn’t and it was the best thing that could have happened because I didn’t end up with any injuries.”
Back then Mr McIntyre worked for one of 26 barbershops across the city – now there are about four.
“I got offered a job when there were a lot of barbers in Maitland and there were four ladies’ hairdressers and no shopping centres. Now there are only about three or four barbershops and 4000 hairdressers,” he said. “And when I started we had to do a shave, shampoo, a hair cut with scissors and comb only and a short-back-and-sides before you to get your licence.
“I don’t know what the story is now, but you only have to look at some of the heads walking around to see they don’t know what a proper haircut is.”
After years of working for others, Mr McIntyre opened his High Street barbershop where babies and nonagenarians share bench space waiting for the master.
“There are a lot of characters in Maitland and I have a lot of memories,” he said.
“I remember when Playboy magazine first came out and the boys from Marist Brothers (now All Saints College St Peter’s Campus) would pinch all my centrefolds; they wouldn’t go anywhere else for their haircuts,” he said
“But seriously, I have loved meeting all the different people and I especially love revving some up. My wife has always said how someone hasn’t knocked me bum over head she’ll never know, but so far I have managed to stay on my feet.
“You have to know who you can stir and who you can’t.”
Mr McIntyre will celebrate his retirement with family and friends at East Maitland Golf Club on Saturday from 4pm.
“I will come back to the barbershop for my haircut. The only thing I don’t like is that the girls throw a handful of hair down my back when they’re finished,” he said.
“I don’t think I deserve that.”