Britain's longest serving hairdresser from Chorley passes away after short illness

Margaret Sherlock, 92, who had been styling in her home salon Hair by Margaret for over 65 years, passed away peacefully at Chorley Hospital last Friday morning where she had resided for the past three weeks after battling with pneumonia.

She was known as the hairdresser who was always willing to fit people in for an appointment and charged reasonable prices.

Her daughter Linda, 66, said: “Her customers were incredibly loyal.

"There were many whose hair she styled for their wedding and for their golden wedding and some came as schoolgirls and were still coming weekly when they had grandchildren.

"One of her first customers was Cath Murphy who came from the same part of Ireland as Margaret and ironically, she was her last paying customer."

As her business grew Margaret needed more staff and so her husband Frank decided to retrain as a hairdresser and joined his wife as her apprentice in the business until he passed in May, 2008.

The well-known and much loved hairdresser previously said of her job: “I consider everyone more as a friend than a paying customer and for many of the regulars it is a chance to catch up with friends as well as feeling better by having their hair styled."

In turn Linda's younger brother Adrian, 59, a retired solicitor, also helped run the business.

The youngest of six sisters, Margaret grew up in a tiny thatched cottage in County Monaghan Southern Ireland.

When her mother died when she was five and her father worked in America. It was her sister Annie who kept the family together.

It was around this time that she gave herself her first haircut with the aid of a cutthroat razor which in turn started a lifelong obsession with hairdressing and, at the age of 15, she started her apprenticeship in Aughnacloy County Tyrone.

Such was her dedication, six days a week she would undertake a 16 round mile round trip by bicycle in order to achieve her ambition.

She later trained as a nurse in Omagh County Tyrone but would style the hair of her colleagues and the patients in order to maintain her skills.

In 1951, she moved to Chorley where she later married Frank who she had met at a dance in Ireland.

With her sister Betty she worked at Eaves Lane Hospital Chorley.

In June 1956, on the day she took her newborn daughter, Linda, home from hospital, she started hairdressing in the front room of her Stratford Road home. This was to become her salon.

In 1962, she gave birth at home to her son Adrian, but not before she had styled the midwife’s hair!

Linda added: “Mum was very dedicated to her clients who became family friends. She wouldn’t take time off for holidays or even if she was unwell.

"She suffered throughout her life with leg ulcers, a by-product of long hours of standing but right until the end she refused to give in.

"She was a great support in times of trouble and the salon became more of a meeting place than just a hairdresser's salon.

"She created an atmosphere where everyone felt welcome and she was able to offer help and advice.”Margaret was very much the only hairdresser, although Linda joined the business when she retired from her job in education.“I did everything but the hair to help her and they were truly some of the happiest times of my life.

"I realised how lovely all the people were who supported my mum and I understood why she enjoyed her job so much.”In 2018, she was the overall winner of the first BBC Radio Lancashire Community Hero Awards organised by breakfast show presenter Graham Liver, who visited the salon and interviewed many of her long-standing clients and friends.

At a lavish ceremony at Preston Guild Hall, Graham surprised her with the award along with international singing group and Britain’s Got Talent Winners Collabro, who later invited her to be their special guest at their concert at Blackpool Opera House. Chorley MP and Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle described her as “an inspiration.”

Margaret celebrated her 90th birthday during the first lockdown but she couldn’t wait to get back to work at a time when many people her age were shielding.“She worked extra days and longer hours in order to get everyone’s hair back into shape,” explainedHer son Adrian said: I really don’t know where she got her energy from.

"She was a remarkable lady and she was a wonderful mum and friend to many.”After the second lockdown, she reopened in time to celebrate 65 years in business and to help Linda to launch the book which she had written about her inspirational mum, the best-selling “Shampoo and Set 75 Years as a Hairdresser. Radio interviews were fitted in before she went to work and she was filmed alongside Linda and Adrian and many of her long-standing clients for BBC North West.In November 2021, Margaret’s mobility began to give her greater problems and she was forced to take some time out but she never retired and looked forward to the day when she could return to her beloved hairdressing and all her friends.Linda said: “She really believed that age was just a number and that if you found a job that you liked, then you never did a day's work in your life.

"We always said the salon was very much hers so we will think about what to do next."Asked how she would like people to remember her mother, Linda added: "As being an inspirational, hardworking and resilient woman who always put everybody else before herself.

"She was working up until last November. She was very dedicated and fought on regardless.

"She never retired."