Never have the good people of Kent had so many options when it comes to having their hair cut and, boy, has the experience changed over the years.

While today’s high streets see the bizarre blend of nail bars, vape shops, coffee shops and tattoo parlours elbowing each other for our custom, it is surely the humble barber which has seen the greatest evolution.

When I was young, having your hair cut involved sitting in a grotty old premises, with the crunch of hair underfoot, where the concept of interior design stretched only to having a door and some chairs.

You’d sit, uncomfortably, waiting patiently for your turn to have an uninspiring, yet functional, trim. Reading material provided? A dog-eared copy of The Sun if you were lucky. The chap administering the haircut looking like he’d never been on nodding terms with a fashionable ‘do’.

You’d emerge, blinking into the daylight like you’d gone a couple of rounds with Mike Tyson – neck red and just pleased you wouldn’t have to return for a good few weeks.

Granted, back in the 1980s and 1990s, I had enough hair to do something ‘with’. (Although all images of that era will suggest I made glaring misjudgement followed by glaring misjudgement).

Today I model more the Homer Simpson style – it still grows on the side and back, but what little remains on top leaves my scalp rudely exposed to the elements. Let’s just say a woolly hat has become a winter essential.

Yet while my hair recedes with little regard to my fragile ego, so the whole barbers experience has been slowly transformed.

Today, I sit in a plush leather sofa in a place decked out with clever lighting, a colour scheme of red and gold and plants. Plants! While modern music spills out, crystal clear, of decent quality speakers. Once you were lucky if you had a transistor radio with Radio 1 being drowned out by the buzz cuts being dished out left, right and centre. The bloke with the trimmers in his hand with a finely chiselled beard and not a hair out of place on his head. Comforting.

Glossy magazines line the table. And this is one of the cheaper outlets where I live.

Not that the actual cutting process, for me at least, takes very long. My choice of styles has been limited to a mere one – I like to call it ‘short and trouble-free’.

The pièce de resistance, however, is the finishing touches. The flame in the ears and nose, for example, followed by that satisfying smell of singed hair. They’ll even trim those pesky wayward eyebrow hairs (another joy of ageing - sure I didn’t have those back in the day). The dabs of moisturiser, the spray of whatever it is that makes your head smell nice at the end.

For £13 it’s something of, excuse the pun, a snip.