YOU DID NOT SIT in Ken Williams’ chair merely for a haircut. You went for a philosophical (even metaphysical) massage, for intellectual refreshment and stimulation. A Ken Williams haircut was more than the removal of hair.
I was one of those fortunate Barbadians to sit in the hydraulic chair of that modern-day Gamaliel. I did so for 44 years.
The day I dreaded came February 1 last year when I called to book an appointment. Ken’s daughter Pat was not upbeat. Ken was ill, and for the first time in those 44 years I had to find a new barber; temporarily, I hoped.
As Ken’s hand grew less steady over time, the finished product was not always the most attractive and occasionally my wife was called in to do some remedial work: a peak here, a valley there . . . nothing that a gentle patting down wouldn’t correct. After a few days, the hair would grow again and all would be well.
I met Ken in 1966, the year of Barbados’ Independence. His salon was situated in Palmetto Square, near the Press Club.
One day as I sat in his chair he stopped clipping my hair and asked: “What are you?”
I thought for a moment and then listed a number of what I thought were achievements up to that time.
He listened patiently and said: “That is who you are. My question was not ‘Who are you?’; I already know that. I want to know what you are.”
I received my first look into the mind of this brilliant though unassuming Barbadian. He pointed out that what you are was much more difficult to determine than who you are.
“It is a hundred times more difficult,” he asserted, “to ascertain what a person is than who he is.” I left his salon that day with a book titled What Am I?.
Ken Williams possessed a disarming sense of humour. One Friday night on CBC Radio’s 100.7FM, where I produced and presented A Little Night Music for five years, I played a tune called The Ballad Of Sweeney Todd, sung by Lea deLaria. It wasn’t until some weeks later while delicately grooming the hair near my right ear with his razor that Ken whispered in my left ear: “You’re in safe hands; I’m not Sweeney Todd.”
Sweeney Todd was that mythical barber of Fleet Street in Victorian England who, in conjunction with his lover, did macabre things to some unfortunate men who went for haircuts. They ended up as the main ingredient in Mrs Lovett’s delicious pies.
I had long since accepted that there are two earthly people in whom you could put absolute confidence: your cook and your barber. The former determines the behaviour of your digestive system; the latter holds a razor to your throat when you sit in his chair.
This column’s 650-word quota does not allow me to do justice to this multifaceted Barbadian giant, but suffice it to say that Ken Williams was one of this country’s unsung heroes. He sought no special accolades, and received none. He did what he had to do and he did it his way – without shouting.
Ten years ago he published a novel, The Passage To Eden, and long before that had been a prolific writer of letters and philosophical treatises to the newspapers on a range of current issues and analyses on the changing Barbadian social landscape. He was a founding member of The Society For A Quieter Barbados.
Inevitably, we disagreed from time to time, especially on the issue of corporal punishment. I could never get him to bend on that.
At the funeral 11 days ago, Anglican Dean Emeritus the Very Reverend Harold Crichlow accurately placed Ken in his appropriate context: he identified him as a metaphysician.
Ken departed quietly on Sunday, January 23, at 94.
Fare thee well, my good friend, as you shuffle off this mortal coil.
