Hairdressing legend’s tips for the top

From Judy Garland to Liza Minnelli, Joshua Galvin has run his fingers through some of the world’s best-known and wealthiest tresses.

And so hairdressing students in Wolverhampton were delighted when he paid a special visit to share the secrets of his success.

The 70-year-old spent yesterday with students at Wolverhampton College’s King Street hair salon where he gave the apprentices an insight into his 56-year career.

He was joined by staff from the City Boy hairdressing training academy based in Southend, Essex.

Afterwards Mr Galvin went on to judge the final of the college’s annual hairdressing competition and gave another demonstration to local hairdressing employers from the Wolverhampton and Telford areas. The evening was held at the Park House Hotel in Shifnal. Each year about 250 students study hairdressing at the college’s two bases in the Black Country and Telford.

Mr Galvin told the Express & Star: “I have been in the business 56 years but the family goes back to the mid-1800s.

“My grandfather was a master wig-maker and my father was a barber.

“I started out helping in dad’s barber shop making tea and sweeping the floor.

There is always a future in hairdressing. It’s one of the trades, skills, profession, whatever you want to call it, where you can honestly say you will never be out of work.”