Warning: Do not try this at home.

There were fewer tourists around in winter. A few of his regulars would drift in throughout the day. But nothing like the old days. Before they all decamped to the cheaper presses down at Wapping.

Today’s yuppies wanted trendier haircuts than he provided. The refurbished antique barber chairs with their shiny chrome feet, pomade and ‘man-chat’ held little sway in the new world order.

On quiet days, he read the paper from front to back. Foreign wars; footballers’ salaries and more spouting by the Mayor of London, who hardly anyone liked. It could get even the most positive of men down.

The doorbell tinkled along with a draught of cold wind.

“Get out alive will I, Buddy?”

An American laughed as he rolled in. Maybe it was the striped pole, or the mad name his grandfather gave the place when he set it up, back in the thirties. Drove Jimmy crazy.

As he shaved his loud customer, he remembered another afternoon, a few years past, about the same time of year.

***

“Whaddya do with the bodies, man?”

Another American too.

But that day was different. That was the day when he did something about his life.

Sitting in the pub later that long-ago evening, second pint in hand, he’d picked up the late edition and read a story about an accidental death, just around the corner.

A kid on vacation swallowed a plum stone. She was but seven years old, and no one knew what to do. No-one in the Street outside knew how to help her.

A life snuffed out.

Jimmy had always been a good guy to have around. Back then, he listened to the day-in, day-out worries and joys of his regulars as he shaved and coiffured their vanities, but on reading that sad tale, he knew he must be more.

The next day he sought out a First Aid course so that he might be a bigger asset to the Street. Someone close to hand in an emergency. He told anyone who would listen of his new expertise with pride, and he placed the certificate of competence on a prominent wall of his shop. They got a defibrillator fitted to the outside wall.

And it led to more.

His tutor had seen his potential, and with a little encouragement and some community funding, Jimmy went on to greater things. After leaving school at 15 to join his father in the shop, a Paramedic course was something he never aspired to. But after all the nights of learning at college; the regular exams he worked so hard for and his many experiences to date, he was finally fully qualified. Shift work let him carry out his vital role in and around his neighborhood, as well as a few shifts in the barbershop, to keep his hand in, as he told everyone.

***

The day was fading fast when he heard the wails. Busy with a customer, Jimmy could neither make out what it was, nor from where it was coming. Then he saw the flailing arms of a screaming woman, carrying a limp child towards him.

“Help me! Help me! She’s choking!”

He ran over, and as he reached them, he could already see the girl was blue. As calmly as he could, he asked the mother what had happened and listened as he worked. He began the Heimlich maneovre, and for the proscribed time his training had told him to use it, he had no success.

Another plum stone. Another child. Another death. It all came back to him.

He had never done it, but he knew it was time for a much more radical step. One that he was so well placed to take.

“Run,” he shouted to the half-shaved regular who had followed him. “Get my first aid bag. Be quick.”

To another onlooker, slowly and clearly, “Ambulance. Fleet Street. ‘Sweeney’s the Barber’. Paramedic needs urgent assistance. Child choking. Hurry.”

He reached in the bag and found the tools he needed, the scalpel and the specialised stainless-steel tube, all neatly held in their sterile pouch.

Breathing deeply, he pictured the vertical incision he needed to make. He measured and marked the exact place. He knew the lateral incision that was to follow and how to insert the tube. He comforted the mother as best he could and forged on, focused on the child.

After all the years of jokes, he now put his reputation to good use.

Jimmy Todd. More than a barber.

Warning: Do not try this at home.