Walking into Frank Connel’s barber shops is like entering a time machine. The walls are littered with pictures, portraits and bank notes chartering adventures across the globe over the past 60 years, each one desperate to tell you the story of its creation and how it ended up here. It’s a rather magical place, one that makes you feel nostalgia for places and eras you may never have even visited.
“Hello Finny,” Frank said with a gleeful smile as I entered.
Photo: Finn Smith
I’d only personally known the man for a couple hours and already he was comfortably using an unwanted nickname for me, one that I would usually hate but from Frank felt like a strange form of acceptance into his bright world.
Frank himself, like the decoration he surrounds himself with, is a man whose life is filled with stories he can’t wait to tell you.
Even his barber chair, a piece of furniture you’d never question in this establishment, came with its own tale.
“It’s a Marley chair,” he excitedly told me once I’d been with him for some time, before showing my the fancy stool that allows him to orbit the customer and the rich history of this nearly 100 year old chair (that word counts unfortunately don’t allow me to retell now.)
At first glance this is what makes Frank such a pleasure, his endless joy for life that leaves you more rich in knowledge from spending time with him. Yet dig a little deeper and there’s so much more to this brave and selfless man.
“We’ve raised over a million and a half for different charities. We’ve gone A to Z with different charities.” He said when asked about his long history of charity work. “Just last week a lady called in, she’d just lost her husband to the [corona]virus and we managed to get a holiday for her and her children to cushion the blow a little bit.”
Photo: Finn Smith
Frank’s kindness is well known to the locals of this city, word of it is what led me to him in the first place, and despite his age and the difficulties of the past year, he’s not slowed down.
“I’ve been a trustee of the nomad trust for a long time, and that has got rather huge right now… As the years have progressed things have got a lot worse. When the council rehomes someone there’s just the walls, ceiling and floor. We collect household appliances and help them make it a home.”
All of this is done off Frank’s own back, and while telling me about his work he proudly showed me the collection of posters and electronics he’d collected that day to help out a recently rehomed single mother. Not one to settle though, he was already suggesting more ways in which people can help, calling for “anyone who is moving house or has unwanted items to bring them into the store.”
Without a doubt Frank is one of the nicest men anyone could have the pleasure of meeting, and his work is not being ignored, as now many of his customers and friends are pushing for him to get an MBE. When asked about it though, Frank suddenly became uncharacteristically shy.
“It’s very embarrassing really… I don’t do it for the medals or anything, but people are good to me.”
This is truly what makes Franks uniquely special, his humility in the face of all he does. Without a doubt he is a treasured member of our community.