Name: Barber shops. Age: Men have always had hair and were getting it cut way back in ancient Egypt and Greece. Appearance: Short back and sides. What on earth has happened to the great British high street? What do you mean? I went into town to buy a tin of shoe polish and some pipe cleaners and deposit a cheque and I couldn’t. I see. That’s possibly because this is 2023, not 1953? No, because everything is now a barber shop. Bank? Barber. Hardware shop? Barber. Post office? ‘Jack of All Fades’. Ah yes, barbers are indeed everywhere. The Local Data Company has recently reported they are the fastest-growing sector of the economy: more than 2,300 opened this year. That’s an understatement. There are that many on my local high street alone. Not quite, but barbers are certainly bucking the trend of high street decline: there are now 19,404 independent barbers and they top the list of growing businesses. Why so many? Hair keeps growing, even in this economy: statistics suggest men get their hair cut about every four weeks. Plus, if the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that haircutting is best left to the professionals. True. No one wants a return to the dark days of DIY mullets and fades. Also, grooming is booming: two of the other top 10 growing businesses are beauty and nail salons. “As banks and estate agents exit the high street this has created opportunities for beauty to move in, and many people are taking it,” Millie Kendall of the British Beauty Council told the Times. A beauty explosion? So it’s male vanity that’s driving this? Not according to Kendall. “It’s about sanity; grooming is a fundamental, almost animal ritual. It’s about wellbeing, self-esteem and confidence. Men also need these things.” But aren’t some beauty businesses a front for organised crime? Well, nail bars can be an easy way to launder money and a front for modern slavery. Det Insp Charlotte Tucker, who has investigated modern slavery in nail salons, has warned that some barber shops may have similar practices. You’re not exactly selling me on this barber shop boom. But barber shops are more likely to be a force for good, offering community and company. Black-owned barber shops played a key role in the civil rights movement in the US; now they are used to deliver health and literacy outreach programmes. In the UK, there is a plan to offer men blood pressure checks while they’re at the barber. Interesting. Maybe if barbers went back to their roots of pulling teeth, we could solve the dental crisis? A bleak, but not inconceivable, prospect. Do say: “Just a bit off the top, please.” Don’t say: “And could you whip out that dodgy premolar when you’re done?”