‘I’m a grandad now’! Baldy Barber Mick is loving life a year after retiring

“I’m on the beach, it’s 25C, and I am just heading into the sea for a swim.”

A year after he retired as one of Cork’s best-loved businessmen, Mick Moriarty - forever known on Leeside as The Baldy Barber - is relishing life.

I thought I would give him a call to mark the first anniversary of his shop closing in Blackpool, and ask him how the quieter life is treating him.

What advice does this sprightly and always-chatty 77-year-old have for people in my age bracket who are starting to think about leaving the workplace for good?

Well, in Mick’s case, it’s clearly to keep active, and to enjoy plenty of sunshine!

He is treading the golden sands of La Zenia, a resort on Spain’s Costa Blanca, when he answers the call.

“I’m doing grand,” he says when I enquire after him. And the photo he sends me on WhatsApp provides glowing evidence.

Mick retired on November 8 last year, after running the legendary barber’s shop on Great William O’Brien Street in Blackpool since 1971. It was a sad day for Cork business.

But he had no time to dwell on such sentiments. Five days after hanging up his scissors, Mick went into hospital for a new hip to complete the set.

“I’ve had two hips now, two knees, and a heart bypass,” he lists, some of which may be indicative of the strain of spending a lifetime standing and bending cutting people’s hair.

A good few months after that latest op were spent “resting up,” adds Mick, but he admits he then started to get “withdrawal symptoms” from the work he loved so much around March.

“I used to talk to people every day,” he explains, “I had such fantastic customers, I was missing it.”

Mick also says he has attended the funerals of 11 of his former customers - and friends - since he retired. “That is heart-breaking,” he adds.

Little wonder he was hankering for his old career.

It’s natural enough for any person in retirement to find it hard to adjust to the quieter life - and Mick says he has his wife, family, and friends to thank for helping him through that bump in the road.

“I had a lot of support and encouragement from people telling me it was time to take it easy,” says Mick. “My advice to anyone retiring is to just ‘go with it’.

“Some people deal with it by going to the pub every day, but that’s not for me.”

Putting the shutters down on the family business after so long - Mick’s father founded the hairdressers in 1937 in Merchants Quay before re-locating to Blackpool - was hard for him, and he admits there were lots of incentives to keep going.

“If I had stayed until this March, that would have marked 60 years for me in business,” says Mick. “Another two years and it would have been the 90th anniversary including dad’s time.

“But my daughter told me, ‘Dad, you have to give up some time’.”

Luckily, we had a fabulous hot summer this year, and that was when Mick really began to enjoy his retirement, with regular trips to the family’s mobile home out in Courtmacsherry.

“I wouldn’t want to have been working in the shop in Blackpool in that heat,” says Mick.

He also had the joy of becoming a grandfather for the first time, when his daughter Louise gave birth to a baby boy, Remy.

“Someone said he is the head off Mick Moriarty!” he roars.

Louise confirms it. “Remy really is the image of dad. We all went for the 4D scan - myself, my partner Frank, mom and dad and my sister Sarah - as Remy is the first grandchild, so we were all out in force to share that special moment.

“I’ll never forget looking at the screen and seeing Remy’s little face and immediately seeing dad in him.

“Even before he was born, the resemblance was incredible. It was such a special moment for all of us.”

Louise reports that Mick is taking his grandfather duties seriously now he has more time on his hands.

“I hope Remy grows up to be just like his grandad in all the ways that really matter,” she said, “kind, caring, loyal, and someone who is loved and appreciated.”

The business community would vouch for that.

As for Mick, he is incredibly active in retirement and really enjoys his sports now he has more time.

“I go swimming five days a week and go golfing at Bandon twice a week,” he says.

And he hasn’t completely put the scissors in cold storage.

“I still cut hair for a few friends,” he says, “they bring along the scones and we have a tea or coffee while I am at it. No money changes hands!”

Mick is also very supportive of his former barber shop colleagues.

“I get my own hair cut either at Noel Sheehan’s shop in Boherbue, or at Donncha O’Connell’s place in Gurranabraher,” he says.

Indeed, Mick was given the honour of cutting the ribbon on Donncha’s new barber’s, Buzz Cutz, earlier this year as a show of support.

Mick also likes to keep his ear to the ground on what is happening in his old patch Blackpool.

His former salon is set to be turned into apartments, while he worries about the threat of flooding for some of the businesses in the village. “It needs to be addressed,” he says.

He remembers hard days in his career - such as when VAT of 23% was imposed on each haircut that cost 80p - but sums up: “I met some fantastic people.”

Now he’s loving his retirement!