On Saturday afternoon, August 29, I settled into my local barber’s chair and requested a “number one” from Andrew, the gracious Cypriot who runs Gents Hairdressers in Peckham, south east London. This routine here is one I’ve engaged in many times over the last decade but, on a blustery August afternoon, it took on a special significance: today was the very last day that this small shop would trade as a barbers.

There was sadness in knowing a local institution was about to close but no shock – when, post-lockdown, I dropped in for a seriously needed haircut, Andrew was sitting outside in the sunshine. I had never, ever seen him doing so before – normally, you took a seat, waiting your turn – so he explained how business was extremely quiet. Indeed, quieter than ever before. While the news was full of reports on UK hairdressers being booked up weeks ahead and chic barber shops turning away customers, Andrew was finding his regulars not yet ready to venture outside.

The reason for this is perhaps best answered by Andrew’s age: 74. He is both old and old school: his barber shop is tucked away on pedestrianised Atwell Road off Rye Lane (Peckham’s main shopping boulevard) and, essentially, is unchanged from when he first started work here 55 years ago: cash only, nothing fancy available (a “beard trim” is on offer but forget “Turkish razor cuts” or “waxing”, “facials” or such), no music plays (let alone TV), reading matter for customers while they wait remains a tabloid newspaper, the walls are unadorned (beyond a few framed cuttings documenting Andrew and Steve, his former work partner, and a message of thanks from Andy McNab, the former British soldier turned bestselling author of Bravo Two Zero and a Peckham lad). Thus Andrew’s customers were largely local men of his generation and Covid-19 has likely made many fearful of venturing out.

During my post-lockdown cut Andrew and I chatted on our experiences over the past three months: he had stayed at home, looking after his disabled wife and tending his garden, this being the longest break from work he had ever experienced in his adult life. His daughter and granddaughters live in Cyprus but the island’s strict lockdown has ensured that travel there is not feasible right now. He got out his phone and showed me footage of his grandkids opening the presents he had sent them once Primark reopened. “Like Christmas,” he said and those children certainly were happy to be receiving new outfits. Andrew stressed that he was happy to be back at work but worried about the drop off in trade – if he wasn’t earning enough to pay the shop’s rent then there was, he felt, no point in continuing.