The decision to retire came after the building owner found a new tenant for the shop.<\/p>\n
Although he admitted retirement feels \u201ca bit daunting\u201d, he said he knew the time had come.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy wife has been saying to me, \u2018When are you going to retire? When are you going to retire?\u2019, but that place keeps me sane,\u201d Harding told Hawke\u2019s Bay Today.<\/p>\n
Over the decades, he became a familiar face for generations of Hastings men. Some customers returned to his chair for up to 50 years and he cut hair for multiple generations of the same family.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of changes,\u201d Harding said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe road used to be double-lane each way, a lot of trees have been cut down on the hospital grounds, and there\u2019s been all different types of businesses in this block of seven shops changing hands and others starting up.<\/p>\n
But Harding never felt he needed to change.<\/p>\n
From his 135-year-old barber chair to the old-school rugby posters on the walls, he never tried to adapt to new trends.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhatever I had in my shop, I just had in my shop,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know nothing about electronics. Less hassles the better.\u201d<\/p>\n
Harding’s shop on Omahu Rd will close on June 5. Photo \/ Rafaella Melo<\/p>\n
He said the most rewarding part of the job is the \u201ccamaraderie\u201d among the clients.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen the men come in for a haircut, there\u2019s always a bit of chatting going on, and different people join in on the conversation,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Rugby was often the topic of discussion, especially with Harding being a longtime fan of Clive Rugby Club, and the All Blacks, of course.<\/p>\n
While he said business had gone \u201cup and down\u201d over the years, he considered himself fortunate to have avoided many of the challenges faced by other retailers.<\/p>\n
He has no plans for retirement yet.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ll cross that bridge when I come to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n
For now, Harding is taking things one haircut at a time until June 5, when the clippers at Rex\u2019s Barber Shop are expected to fall silent for the last time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The decision to retire came after the building owner found a new tenant for the shop. Although he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":444885,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[74,156365,9060,5194,26522,14909,111,139,69,6744,6652,143464,4739,213,1361],"class_list":["post-444884","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-after","tag-barber","tag-decades","tag-hastings","tag-keeps","tag-me","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-place","tag-retires","tag-sane","tag-six","tag-sports","tag-that"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444884","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444884"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444884\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/444885"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444884"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444884"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444884"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}