Growing up, I thought Poulson was an unusual name – not many around us in Bromley. It was often misspelled (so you learn “P as in Peter, o-u-l-s-o-n”) or mispronounced – we said it POLE-SUN not POOL-SUN. Poulson is not only fairly common, depending on the location, but some of the people who shared the last name – and in the case of my father, grandfather and his cousin, first and last name – got themselves into trouble with the law and generated all sorts of unsavory press coverage! More on the stories of cousins John Ernest Llewellyn Poulson (Bank Manager John) and John Garlick Llewellyn Poulson (The Corrupt Bankrupt Architect) in later blog posts.

I thought my next family story would be a minor amusement about my father, John David William Poulson, as a young actor testifying before the London County Council about getting ripped off by a huckster barber for an insanely expensive haircut in 1953 (costing £115 in today’s money). However a story in the Guardian lead to splashy tabloid headlines and stories in London, Birmingham, Nottingham and Dundee papers – going viral as best as it could in 1953’s terms.

Dad was a young actor in weekly repertory theatre in the early 1950s and also worked for the BBC. Young actors did not make very much money then – this ad from  The Stage in 1950 gives a general idea . My mother was in weekly rep in Hastings that autumn – they married in July 1950 and were in a number of weekly repertory companies together in 1951 and 1952, but Dad was on his own when a haircut at a West End salon seemed like a good idea. That he’d pay about half his weekly gross salary for a haircut seems truly insane.

I had never heard my father tell this story (and he told so many, I was initially surprised), but I think the fact he fell for a scam was embarrassing, so he skipped it for more flattering stories. I checked notebooks he had filled when he’d thought about writing a memoir after Margo died in 1998 and lo and behold there’s a reference to this story! He made reference to being confused with a rapist John Poulson, also splashed all over the tabloids at the time, and fielding calls from upset relatives. As Dad’s notes had the £4 13s haircut now up to £18 (which would be an even more insane £470 in today’s money), I caught the whiff of exaggeration and decided to search for the “rapist” John Poulson in 1953 papers.

If you can’t decipher my Dad’s scribble, above, not to worry, very few people could and there’s a transcription here.

It turns out there was a grain of truth to the story (typical for Dad’s stories), but it was a charge of abduction of a 16-year-old-girl by her 23-year-old boyfriend, John Clifford Poulson. As far as I know, he’s no relative. At least one John-Poulson-gone-bad not in our immediate family tree!

Dad’s notes say “Haircut £18. Ch X Rd. £3 from PO. Borrowed from B. O’Brien office. LCC ‘court’ all over D. Mirror. Rapist same name. Letters from relatives.”

Ch X Rd is Charing Cross Road and the person he borrowed from appears to be Barry O’Brien productions, which ran several repertory companies, one of which he must have been in. I’d love to have been a fly on the wall for that conversation.

The crooked barber wanted a license to offer more expensive treatments and Dad, along with a few other unhappy customers, testified about their ripoff tactics to the London County Council’s licensing board.

From the Daily Mirror, Sept 2 1953, here’s the gist of my father’s story:

ACTOR John Poulson, with 19s. 6d. in his pocket, went to the barber’s for a haircut. He got one and a few treatments. The bill came to £4 13s. So, Mr. Poulson said yesterday, he went to borrow £1 from his employer — and the man who had cut his hair accompanied him when he also drew £3 from his post-office account to pay the charge.

The tabloid interest apparently stemmed from a number of scam artists charging unsuspecting customers insane amounts for haircuts in London. This particular barber had asked a prospective employee if he could charge customers £4 or £5 as that was what was needed; the barber kept another customer’s coat until he came back to pay the full amount (he was charged just £1). He called another customer’s employer to threaten him. In August, he’d been fined £10 for assaulting a customer who had left after the high pressure sales began. Perfect for a tabloid story. I don’t suppose my father knew about the assault charge, but given that, perhaps it’s just as well that he meekly paid up!

Half my father’s bill (£2 2s) was a worthless hair tonic. From the Mirror story: “Dr. S.G. Burgess, a chemist, who analysed the tonic supplied to Mr. Poulson, said that lime-green liquid in a bottle labelled “Tonic No. 2″ was essentially industrial methylated spirit containing about 22 per cent of castor oil. It was worth about 1s.” For those not familiar with pre-decimal money in the UK, there were 20 shillings in a pound; 12 pence in a shilling and a guinea was £1 1s.

The Daily Mirror sent in a reporter under cover a day or two later and emerged with a massive bill but a great headline: “How to spend £6 7s 6d at a barber’s in 31 minutes” That’s about £165 in today’s money!

In less than two years, my father would leave London and partner with another young actor (my godfather, Peter Goss) to run a repertory theatre in Bromley, having concluded that he was a better director than actor. It was an all-consuming endeavor, but if the articles in The Stage are to be believed, he and Peter were very successful in turning a financial wreck into a viable, quality, provincial repertory theatre. So perhaps he learned something useful from the haircut incident about managing his money?

Mr. & Mrs. Stanley didn’t get their license. One can only hope they learned something useful too.