Bobbing, Shingling & Marcel Waves - Workaday Wednesday

"Bobbing, Shingling, Marcel Waving and Perming", was the promise of hairdresser "Elise" whose business in Blackpool, Lancashire  was advertised in this lovely evocative 1920's "blotter" (left).                                                          



Elsie Oldham -
"Elise" c. 1920's

Elise's real name was Elsie but perhaps the French adaptation was regarded as more appropriate for a hairdresser.   The business was conducted from the rather less glamorous setting of her home (below) with the large adverts in the windows and on the pole outside. 

Elsie set up her hairdresser's in  about 1926 and it continued until the property was sold in 1975. In moving into a bungalow, one of the bedrooms was converted into a hairdresser salon, with Elsie working   until shortly before she died in 1989 - by that time the number of customers had dwindled to about three a week all of whom were as old as she was!  When the house was emptied a cupboard was discovered full of bottles of hair dye  in myriad colours - some of it must have been at least 20 or 30 years old!



The Oldham home in Blackpool, Lancashire
with the adverts in the window & on the garden pole.

Elsie's old set of scissors and hair clippers

 Elsie's son Stuart and I are third cousins and share the same Danson great, great grandfather (Henry Danson (1806-1881).  We made contact through my blog and discovered we lived only 50 miles  apart, so it was easy to meet and exchange photographs and memories -  we even discovered  we had been to the same primary school in Blackpool.   With thanks to Stuart for allowing me to tell the family story and to show these images.

For more photographs and stories of the Oldham family, see:
Finding a Third Cousin
And Dolly Came Too
Three Generations of Carters & Coal Merchants  
What a  Magnificent Hat!

 

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"Workaday Wednesday "  is a one of many daily blogging prompts from www.geneabloggers.com to give inspiration to writers of family history.