New Brunswick barber marks miraculous milestone

Four days a week, Aubin Schofield can be found in his happy place, behind his barber chair with clippers in hand. While the location has changed slightly through the years, it’s where he’s been for the last six decades.

“Like they say, if you enjoy your work, you never worked a day in your life, I kind of feel that way,” said the 78-year-old barber. “Even though it’s 60 years, that’s a lot of days worked, but I believe there’s a truth to that [statement].”

He officially started as a barber 60 years ago on Feb. 28 when he attended his first day of school in Moncton, N.B., at just 17-years-old, but one could argue he’s been doing it for longer.

“My mother and father always cut hair at home,” he said. “They cut neighbours’ hair and our hair and so eventually they got older and they stopped cutting and I was getting more [towards] a teenager and I asked them to show me how to use the clippers, you know, and it went from there.”

With his parents knowledge in his back pocket, Aubin completed 30 hair cuts his very first week of school.

“I was never interested in doing anything else,” he said.

He spent his first year as a barber in Saint John before moving to Miramichi where he has worked in five different barber shops in Chatham, including the last 24 years at Jerry’s Barber Shop.

“He’s got a great reputation and people really like him,” said Linda Hembrough, who has worked with him at Jerry’s for 24 years. “Everyone knows him. We had a little funny incident one day. Somebody on Facebook wanted to know about doing lines in a young fellow’s hair cut and they said… I shouldn’t say it, but they said the old fellow across the road from the bank of Nova Scotia. He’s still very up on everything.”

Aubin Schofield has been a professional barber for 60 years. (Alana Pickrell/CTV News Atlantic)

Over the last two decades, the working duo say it’s been nothing but fun.

“I hate to say it in front of him, but he’s a very easy going man, very easy to get along with, doesn’t get upset or anything and he’s a really great barber,” said Hembrough.

After decades in his career, Aubin couldn’t pinpoint one favourite memory, but there is one day that has stuck with him throughout the years.

“One thing that sticks in my mind is I only had one hair cut,” he laughed. “In one day! It never happened ever again, but for some reason, I just did one hair cut in the whole day.”

Aubin says somehow he loves his job even more today than he did when he first started.

He says he’s seen styles and trends change and he likes now how everyone seems to get what they want, instead of just getting the same thing as everyone else.

However, he says it isn’t just the technique that he looks forward to everyday, it’s the clients.

“One time, years ago, a man would come in with four boys, but now those four boys, I do their grandchildren’s hair, so it’s quite amazing when you look back you remember when he was sitting on the board and now his grandson or son is siting on the board,” he said. “I always enjoyed doing this because you meet people everyday and you don’t meet the same people everyday.”

As for retirement? It seems unlikely.

“I’m not interested in stopping yet,” he laughed. 

For more New Brunswick news visit our dedicated provincial page.