The Wig

I was going to overlook this activity because to be honest I didn’t think it merited an entry all of its own. However on reflection…

I took the Bakerloo Line from Kenton to Paddington. I would gladly have availed myself of the joy of purchasing a ticket from a person in the ticket office, but he was on his break (Bob Crow take note!). So I used the touch screen machine. Evidently you need a fairly hefty touch! Still I managed to get a ticket eventually - £6.30 return!!! I only wanted a seat, not the whole train!

The journey was uneventful, but did have the mandatory berk with their ipod playing just loudly enough to irritate. The train passed through such exotic locations as Harlesden, and Willesden Junction. In about 30 minutes we arrived at Paddington. Going up the escalator I notice that the little cardboard adverts had been replaced with little silent TV adverts. I can distinctly remember watching Blade Runner and finding the concept of TV adverts in public places unthinkable. I really must be getting old.

Anyway, Paddington is a sea of Bureaux de change, tacky souvenir shops, (sometimes these first two are one and the same), restaurants, numerous hotels of very varying quality and some very quaint (and expensive I should imagine) mews.

I wandered towards 34 Craven Road, negotiating the suits, tourists with their wheelie suitcases and a hoard of small primary school children who appeared to be just wandering up and down Praed Street albeit in a purposeful manner.

Raoul (Wig makers since 1899) is the shop front of the building where Tommy Handley lived until his untimely death in 1949 at the age of 57 from a brain haemorrhage. For those of a certain age you will know him from ITMA. For the rest of you Google him.

Raoul, which also does hairdressing, looks like something from the 1963 Peter Sellers comedy “The Wrong Arm of the Law” except not in black and white. It transpired that it had more in common with that era than I had at first suspected.

I entered the empty shop (not entirely certain why I had to have an appointment!) to be met by an ancient man who could well have been the original Raoul himself! I was shown to the back of the shop and put in a curtained off cubicle. A little while later a charming lady came and sorted me out with a wig which although quite a good match to what I currently have on my hair does look a little like a Beatles wig but in the wrong colour. So in the hopefully unlikely event that my hair does drop out I think that wig will be the port of last resort.

Wigs as you would imagine have to be washed etc. with special wig shampoo, conditioner and fibre oil(!) which Raoul will sell you for the princely sum of £16.50. I got my wallet out and proffered my card only to be told that they only accept cash!!! See I told you this shop was stuck in a bygone age. Apparently everyone who comes to get their hair cut there pays cash. Well dear reader I left without the lotions and potions. I’ll just have to hope that baby shampoo and Lenor do the job!