BARBER SHOP ODYSSEY

The Greek barber shop in the Pavonia Place Village , Nightcliff, Darwin,  seems to have been in existence as long as the famous Acropolis of Athens .The Greek club which operated above the shop crashed like Icarus with the efflux of time , but the tenacious tonsorial team carried on. One of the barbers working there , who recently came back to Darwin from Greece, made and installed the shop’s furniture in l967. Three generations of my family have had their locks trimmed in the shop. The last time I had my haircut there –a long overdue tidy up before Christmas (barber starver ) -I noticed there had been some changes. There were new curtains in traditional barber pole colours and large posters of Humphrey Bogart with a gat and Lauren Bacall , Elvis Presley, Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe above the mirrors. The plight of the Greek economy , the German bail out and Italian politics were discussed during the visit . Since that trim, a barber shop pole has been painted on the outside brickwork. If I remember correctly, the father of one of the early barbers had worked at the Rum Jungle uranium mine ; in recent years the shop experienced break ins which have plagued the centre and one of the barbers resorted to sleeping on the premises with his dog to protect the premises ; he was injured when a drunk driver ran into a taxi in which he was travelling and can no longer cut hair ; a Greek woman came from Queensland to help keep the shop open . Now there are two barbers there. The Nightcliff Greek barber shop story is worthy of media excavation.