Cliff Scott stands behind his barber's chair in his recently closed downtown shop. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

By Alison Sandstrom

A cut above

A fixture in P.A.’s downtown, local barber retires after 57 years

Apr 9, 2021 | 4:30 PM

Cliff Scott has been cutting hair long enough to see styles come and go and come back again.

“In the 60s, when I came here, the main haircuts were the product of the product of the Second World War—short, high and tight,” he says. “Now they’re back to that again.”

Sitting in his downtown shop, he describes how he lived through the advent of the safety razor—which cut into barbers’ business by allowing men to shave at home—and weathered the 1970s by learning how to do perms.

“When the Beatles introduced longer hair, well that put a lot of barbers out of work because people weren’t getting their hair cut,” he says. “The only way I survived was I went to Toronto and took a postgraduate course to work with men’s hair long, how to do perms and colours and everything that goes with long hair.”

Now after a 57-year career in Prince Albert’s downtown, Scott is hanging up his sheers, a few weeks shy of his 80^th birthday.

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Scott has been at this location on 13th Street for the past 27 years. (Alison Sandstrom/paNOW Staff)

A life of public service

Scott got his start as a barber working in a small shop in a billiard hall located underneath the former Strand Theatre on Central Avenue. He explains he’s moved a few times, but always stayed within the downtown. Eventually, he partnered with another barber who owned Ken’s Barber Shop and later bought out his share of the business.

Through it all, Scott says the highlight of his career has been his clients.

“I love what I do,” he says. “Serving the public has been my life. There’s always a whole cross section of people come into a barbershop, there’s no one economic [class] or status, everybody comes to the barbershop.”

Among the approximately 100 haircuts Scott averaged per week for years, he’s had some patrons who have been coming to him for decades.

He explains one of the first clients he ever had, shortly after moving to P.A., was a young man who lived in the same boarding house.

“He made the mistake of telling me he was getting married on Saturday,” Scott says. “Well, then I got nervous.”

It would appear despite the nerves, the haircut turned out alright. Scott continued to cut the man’s hair for the next nearly six decades until he passed away last year.

“He was with me right up until the end,” Scott says, explaining in the later years he visited his friend at home to do his hair.

Retirement and thank you to clients

Even after his lengthy career, Scott explained he “had no intention of retiring yet.”

The past year spent working long days with a mask on aggravated his asthma, he says. In early March, he finished the day struggling and knew he couldn’t keep going. He spent the next three weeks sick in bed.

Fortunately, Scott’s health has been improving recently.

His landlord hasn’t found anyone to take over his former space yet, but they’re hopeful it could be another barber or hair stylist. Otherwise, Scott says he’ll look at selling his equipment piece by piece.

As he steps into retirement, Scott expresses his gratitude to everyone who’s trusted him with their hair over the years.

“My clients were really faithful, they stayed with you. And I just really really miss them,” he says. “I want to thank them from the bottom of my heart for just being part of my life and supporting me all these years.”

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alison.sandstrom@jpbg.ca

On Twitter: @alisandstrom