When you picture a barbershop or hairdresser’s today, what comes to mind? The hum of hairdryers, the sizzle of curling irons, the buzz of electric clippers? Now, imagine stepping back eighty years to the 1940s. Electronic appliances like these were nowhere to be found. So, what did a hairdresser’s shop look and sound like then? […]
As a girl at West Wallsend in the 1950s Narelle Kemp watched her mother Elvie, with pointed index finger, turn the number dial on this black Bakelite telephone. She listened to the distinctive rotation sound as the dial returned. When someone called, the phone’s built-in-bell made a cheerful ring, which carried throughout all the rooms […]
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