By Andrew Mackenzie

Copyright scotsman

Juan Veiga, originally from A Coruna in the Galician region of northwest Spain, came to Scotland for a holiday in 1983 and stayed a little longer than he expected. Generations of customers have since made their way from far and wide to his Peluquero de Hombres shop at 244 Leith Walk, knowing his skills made the journey worthwhile. Even if they had to wait. John – as most of his local customers know him – would not be rushed, he took no appointments, it was only ever first come, first served (“more fair that way”, he thinks), and he always worked alone. “I like my own company,” he says. “The thing is to be patient, with any customer, I’m never in a rush to get them out the chair. Sometimes a customer will tell me I’m taking too long, but no, I’m not in a rush to go anywhere, I’m not going to have a siesta. When you get in the chair, you need to relax too,” he says, smiling, always smiling. “As the Spanish say, it’s manana. People should be more relaxed about doing things, rather than a hundred miles an hour. You’re only here passing by, really, it’s your time.” John opened his shop in December 1984, nearly 41 years ago, and a lot of life has passed by his windows in that time. For most of it, he opened up at 6am, Monday to Saturday, shutting his doors at 6pm through the week, and at 3pm on a Saturday, if it wasn’t busy. He’d stay open later if customers were waiting. These were long days. But now, aged 65, he’s ready to take the weight off his feet. “I came on a wee holiday to start with, and then a couple of months later, I met my wife, got married, and then the family started from there,” said John, adding that he’d met his wife-to-be Janice, from Kirkcaldy, in an Edinburgh bar where she was working, although he can’t remember which bar. It’s a long time ago, 1984, and there were many bars to choose from. He and Janice settled in her native Kirkcaldy, and they had two sons, now in their 30s. He has a four-year-old grandson, who he’ll be seeing more of once Peluquero de Hombres closes at the end of October. But what possessed him to take a holiday in Scotland in the first place? Because it’s rainy like it famously is in Galicia? “The weather is very similar, very similar, a bit drier here in Edinburgh than it is in Galicia,” says John, “But no, it was watching television, Edinburgh would always be on in Spain, the festival and the Tattoo, everywhere on TV. You’d see more of the Tattoo on television in Spain than you do here.” And he soon became closely connected to the Military Tattoo at Edinburgh Castle in August. “When I first started, I used to go to the castle and cut the soldiers’ hair,” he says, “For five years. A couple of customers quite high up in the Tattoo, they used to send a car to pick me up, go there and bring me back. A VIP! I’d be there all evening till about 10, 11 o’clock at night. And I could watch the Tattoo for free.” For those first five years cutting hair in Leith, John rose at 5am, took the bus to Kirkcaldy railway station, and then the train to Waverley. Caught out on a few occasions by train cancellations, he opted to make the daily commute by car, and has maintained that practice for the last 35 years. “Originally I didn’t intend to open a shop in Edinburgh. I was living in Fife and thinking of opening a shop there, in Kirkcaldy or Glenrothes, and then looked at Edinburgh because, obviously, there was more potential [for customers] than Fife. Before I opened the shop I would stand outside places in town and count how many people would go by. At Fountainbridge, over near Tynecastle, Gorgie, Corstorphine. For passing trade. I did my research.” So what made him choose Leith? “The shop was available at the right price, at the right time,” he says, while recalling the liveliness of Leith’s main thoroughfare, “Leith Walk was very vibrant, busy, butchers’ shops, fish shops, bakers, clothes shops, everything. It was a busy place. It still is. “When I first came here, I never thought I’d still be here 40 years later. But I’m happy I was.” John has navigated the rapids of financial crashes, countless recessions, a global pandemic, and years of tram construction disruption on Leith Walk. “It was a great inconvenience,” he says, “It wasn’t easy. But we survived, thanks to the customers, a lot of businesses didn’t. “A customer was in the other day saying ‘I must be one of the longest-travel customers, coming from Corstorphine to you’, I say not really, customers come here from Canada, America, and another customer sitting here says ‘he’s right you know, some customers come here for a haircut from Australia’.” In the early days, he says, many of his customers “came from the distilleries, Crabbies on Great Junction Street, Bond 9 on Commercial Street, and the post office on Brunswick Road, the sorting office used to be there, people finished work at 6 o’clock in the morning. When they finished night shift, they’d come in for a haircut.” So what’s next for the barber of A Coruna? “I don’t know yet, the garden, a lot of things to do,” he says. “Have a holiday. I want to go and see Spain, there’s a lot of places I haven’t seen in Spain. I’m Spanish but I haven’t seen Spain, so that’s what I want to go and do. And I want to go to the islands of Scotland, which I haven’t seen. That’s my next project.” And he says he is ready to start “a new chapter, a new life”. He adds: “I’d like to thank all the customers for the satisfaction of serving them for the last 41 years, it’s been great. They’ve gone fast, I don’t know where the time went. Families, fathers, sons, grandchildren, great grandsons. My last 40 years, it’s down to them, it’s been a pleasure to serve them. I’m sad to go, but I leave them in good hands, with plenty barber shops to choose from. “Even now, people will be very disappointed I finish. Because I’ll miss them, and they’ll miss me.” This reporter will always recall fondly his gentle voice intoning wistful observations about the world, the government, the council, human relations in general, floating down onto your head and shoulders like soft Galician rain. Open your eyes and you see Juan smiling in the mirror, repeating his words for the sake of emphasis, ‘essactly’, in his forever faltering English, never polished, never rushed. He remains open for business, excepting Wednesdays and Sundays, until Tuesday October 28.