Sunday 3 June 2012

maggie's beauty salon

maggie's beauty salon
Maggie's beauty salon opened in the 1960's but the current owner, bought it in the early 1970's.  It was a small space above a coffee shop which is long gone and where a Hong Kong and Shanghai bank now stands.
It moved to its current place in 1984, run by Grace, its pretty much a family affair as she has her sisters working with her.  It still has the small blue mosaic tiles on the floor, the old decaying shampoo area, the large hair blowers.  All add to the ambiance of  something that should have been put to bed a long time ago .  but...

Where will the old ladies,  who come to Grace to get their tight perms, go?  Where will they find someone who knows them, doesn't charge the earth for a cut and blow dry, someone who greets them by name and asks how they are and actually genuinely cares about the answers they give.  I sat there this afternoon, getting my hair coloured, I have, on and off, been getting my hair done by Grace and her sisters, for 37 years.  It was Grace who taught my sister how to first cut hair.  My sister now lives in London and has her own hair salon.  My mother still comes to Grace to get her hair washed and get it done up in a beautiful bun.  It was Grace who gave me my first hair trim when I was 13.

Another old neighbourhood shop closing, paying the price of modernisation and progress.  Talk is that another wine bar may open or a bank.  All we can do is remember the past and wish progress wouldn't be in such a hurry to bulldoze everything into the 21st century

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