As a nine-year-old lad, Karl Williams would head to his parents’ hair salon after school with his three brothers.
He still remembers the lively atmosphere in the tiny space, which was affectionately known as the Sweatbox, in Hackney, East London.
More than 50 years later, Karl has sought out BBC One’s The Repair Shop to mend the tiny portable radio that provided the soundtrack of that time.
It represents the bond he had with his grandmother Adassa Joseph, who he lived with during secondary school after she was widowed, and his father gave him the radio as a gift.
“The radio reminds me of the six years I spent with her,” says Karl, 60, who now runs his own salon, Chic Unique, in Brixton, South London.
After tech whizz Mark Stuckey gets to work in tonight’s episode, Karl can hear it play the songs of his youth.
He describes it as emotional, adding: “Especially as they were able to find one of the songs my father loved to sing. Why Do You Want to Make Those Eyes at Me For? by Emile Ford. When he would get up to mischief, he’d look at my mum and sing that song.”
Parents Enoch and Genevieve, originally of Antigua, set up Glamourland before moving to bigger premises and launching the Ebony School of Hairdressing, as well as a salon in New York and the afro hair product brand Sahara Single Bible.
But it all began with that tiny space and a little Russian radio.
* The Repair Shop, BBC1, 8pm.
