Abandoned 1950s hairdressers with curlers set out where ‘everyone got same cut’

It was a perfect snapshot of an era when beehives were the bee's knees and the Elvis quiff was king.

In fact, if you'd walked into this hair salon you'd have felt like you were stepping back in time to the 1950s.

Everything remained perfectly intact, just as it would have back in the day – from the neatly laid out cans of hairspray and sets of curlers, to the tubs of Brylcreem, straight razors and scissors.

Even the gowns still hung on door hooks as though ready to be worn, while a wireless radio sat in the corner waiting patiently to be turned back on.

Indeed, you'd be forgiven for thinking that the staff had simply popped out for lunch and were due to return any minute to administer the next shampoo and set or short back and sides.

And that's the way Lewis's Hairdressers in Aberdare, South Wales stayed until decades later when, under the possible threat of demolition, the long-closed front doors of the by-now derelict building were opened once again.

What is more, when photographs of its time capsule-like interior were recently posted on social media they prompted a flood of nostalgia from those who recalled going there in their younger days.

Although, while some were misty-eyed upon seeing the images, others' memories of being taken by their parents to get their locks chopped were enough to make your eyes water.

"Going to 'Miss Lewis' at the hairdresser was a nightmare for me back in the early '60s, " wrote Janice Hickson, who attended the nearby Girls' Grammar school back then.

"My mum would tell me to ask for a trim and it would end up with the neck clippers being used and me crying that I had no hair left – I looked like a boy."

"I looked like I'd been shorn by the nit nurse," said another.

Denzil Davies added that he remembered going there at the height of Beatlemania with a group of friends in order to get a similar look to The Fab Four.

"We all wanted Beatles haircuts – somewhat optimistically, given the fact none of us had long enough hair in the first place," he said.

"So, as the first boy was tucked into the chair like a sacrificial lamb in his white gown, we all looked on in anticipation.

"Within minutes he'd practically been given a skinhead. So the rest of us made for the door, laughing hysterically.

"I don't think we ever went back. What cowardly little deserters we were."

A family affair, the shop was started in the 1930s by a teenage entrepreneur called John Lewis who expanded the operation to include various members of his family as the years went by.

It closed in 1990 and sat empty and untouched for 15 years, by which time it seemed beyond saving.

Nevertheless, it was spared the wrecking ball after being bought at auction in 2005 and renovated.

But, sadly, claims that it might reopen once again as a salon have so far proven unfounded and it remains disused to this day.

However, the shop's contents were saved and moved to St Fagans National Museum of History in Cardiff for preservation.

Meticulously catalogued and numbered, the fixtures and fittings will stay in the vaults there until a suitable home can be found for them on-site.

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