View gallery Redcar barber Mike Forbes
View gallery He's cut the hair of thousands of Teessiders over the past 50 years - but when Bob Mortimer name checks you on national TV, you must surely be a cut above the rest.
Redcar barber Mike Forbes - or “Foffa” as he’s known - couldn’t believe it when the Teesside comic beamed his nickname to the nation.
Mike said: “Vic and Bob were doing Top of the Pops 2. When Vic said how everyone used to have a Rod Stewart haircut, Bob said: “Yeh, I used to go to Foffa’s in Doggy - he used to do everybody!” He must have been a kid when I did him.”
Born on January 30, 1949, and raised in Cargo Fleet, Mike attended Lawson Boy’s School before beginning his career in July 1964, working under Middlesbrough barber Ron Chilver.
He recalls: “We were on North Ormesby Road which was big in those days - it had a pawnbroker and a bakery which sold Upex pies. It was a run down shop but it was always packed and I learned a lot.
“The 60s were my favourite time - the fashion, the music, the characters. The shop was full all the time - we were cutting their hair to go to the Twisted Wheel all-nighter club in Manchester. Loads of people used to go from here. It was when mod and soul music was at its height.
“My heroes were, and still are, The Beatles, the Stones and Man United - especially Denis Law. He was the man.”
After buying the shop off Ron in 1971, Mike ran it for a few years before, in 1978, he snapped up the old Jacob and Erik two storey salon on Albert Road and called it Mike Forbes in Town.
“It was a big move for me - we took a risk but it paid off and we had seven staff at one time. It was all perms and peroxide - it was good,though, because we could charge women’s prices! We used to do the Boro players - Gary Parkinson, Brian Laws, Colin Cooper, Gary Hamilton, David Hodgson. They got promotion under Bruce Rioch when we were doing them, so I’ll claim some of the credit. They were good lads, though.”
After selling the salon in 1989, Mike made an ill-fated move in to pub management with the Miller’s Yard pub-restaurant in Skinningrove, but crippling interest rates saw the venture end in voluntary liquidation in 1992.
His hand forced, Mike decided to return to hairdressing - only this time, he would end up working alongside, and latterly FOR, his son Ben.
With help from friends to get it up and running, Mike opened a salon on Station Road, Redcar and he’s been on the same road ever since, albeit in three different buildings. And for the past eight years, he’s worked for Ben at his son’s salon, Agent - and he’s loving it.
The banter between the two is constant. As we talk, Ben chips in: “Is he telling you about all the people’s weekends he’s ruined over 50 years with his haircuts?” Rolling his eyes, dad-of-two Mike, 65, says: “He’s a cheeky so and so. But it’s like working with my best mate - apart from the rubbish music he plays.”
Mike, who held a family party at the weekend to celebrate his 50 years, has no plans to retire.
He said: “I’ve had a resurgence - I’m loving it now more than ever. It’s like being in a pub with mates, but without drinking beer. And I just want to thank all the people who have supported me over the years, and followed me from Boro to Redcar. When I was on my backside after the pub didn’t work out, people helped me open up in Redcar and I’ll never forget that.”
And throughout his 50 years, one story stands head and shoulders above the rest.
He said: “When I first started, a tall man in a suit came in. He was manager of a furniture store and very abrupt - I felt quite intimidated.
I said “Take a seat, sir” - you called men “sir” back then - and asked: “How would you like it cut?” He said two words: “In silence.”
“As I cut his hair, I was getting more and more wound up, thinking what a cheeky so and so he was. So as he went to leave and he asked “How much?”, I just pointed, in silence, to the sign showing the prices.
“Thankfully, most people have been much nicer than that!”
