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Chapter 1: What is the significance of Tongan adoption customs in Charles Lomu's life?
I saw something glowing beneath the tea tree. Look at that. So I pulled the camera out and I stuck my arm in. What could go wrong?
What have you done?
Something snapped. Looking back on it.
Joyous moment.
Chapter 2: How did growing up in Tonga shape Charles Lomu's understanding of love?
But it's a little bit emotional. What did you do? All right, I'll tell you.
Clip, clip. I tried to throw that sword away. Oh, no. Your whole being screamed. And suddenly. It was in my blood. Life's changed. I love that. Very, very confronting. Like it was for a long, long time. When it began. 20 years of conversations on ABC Radio.
Hello, welcome to Conversations. As part of our 20th anniversary this year, we've been digging down into the archives and mining out some choice favourites. As you can imagine, it's been very hard to choose just 20 from all the amazing guests we've met over the years. Today, it's my conversation with Sydney barber, Charles Lomu.
In a garage in Blacktown in Sydney's western suburbs, Charles Lomu is a youth worker who teaches young guys to cut hair. This wasn't the original plan for Charles' life, but he's pretty happy with the way things have turned out. In his early years, Charles lived with his grandparents in Tonga, reading the Bible with his grandmother, helping out his grandfather.
He moved back to Australia and became a talented rugby player, but then he went off the rails for a bit. After a stint in prison, Charles tried his hand at various jobs. He'd been cutting hair all his life, But now he discovered that barbering gave him peace and friendship and independence. And more than that, it gave him an opportunity to lift up other young guys who were just like him once.
Charles took in five apprentices and taught them not only how to cut hair, but also how to open up and talk and to make their way in the world. Hi, Charles. Welcome. How are you doing, Richard? I'm well, sir. Thank you. You still do the barbering workhorse and your barber shop set up in your garage. What kind of a set up have you got there?
I've got a simple set up with just two stations and I've got one station that I take after, look after myself and then next to me I have another station that I'm training my daughter in and my wife also shares that station as well so she does braiding as well and together we deliver a service that's more focused on the type of hair culture that we're into and that's urban style hair culture.
And it's quite simple. And I just love the fact that it's in a home environment. It just helps my children see that there are other ways that they can make a living and still have time for family. You're known as Six Fades. What does that mean? Six Fades, yeah. So when I first started barbering, before I actually took barbering on as a career, I actually did some music.
Recorded an album and I was signed to a record label and did some music and my title, my artist name was Six Pound, which comes from a story that's tied to my village back in Tonga. What's the story? Can you tell us? Yeah, the story, it's my grandfather's village back in Tonga. It's called Limatu'a in the island of Wawa'u.
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Chapter 3: What challenges did Charles Lomu face after moving to Australia?
We do it in an urban cultural way. So it goes from like a skin fade from a razor length to like a longer length. But it's pretty fancy. Before, back in the day, you just asked for a blend. Right. Now there's like a taper fade, a skin fade, a low fade, a high fade, a burst fade. Yeah, there's all different types of fades now.
Right, isn't it all fine art, is it, to get it right? Yeah, sure is.
Chapter 4: How did grief impact Charles Lomu's life choices?
Because I'm guessing if it's not even, it looks terrible. So you've got to get it right, exactly right then, don't you?
Yeah, that's exactly right, yeah. So you've got to, there's a lot more focus on understanding how your clipper works. So you've got to understand the features on every single clip and what each feature, each setting can do. And then that allows you to be able to control the actual fade in the haircut.
So it's like a paintbrush except in reverse. In other words, you're taking stuff off rather than putting stuff on the canvas of the head. Absolutely. I think I've noticed about when the difference between the way men and women get their hair cut is, you know, women's hairdressing salons are pretty lively places. A lot of chat going on. Women are pretty happy to be there.
They're having a good time.
Chapter 5: What led to Charles Lomu's involvement in barbering?
It's different with the barber thing. Guys, when they come in, and I think I'm like this too, pretty nervous, you know, and a bit shy. I think what guys are trying to say to the barber is, can you make me look cool, mate? But that sounds bad, so they won't say it. What do you think is going on there, the nervousness of guys when they come in to get their hair cut?
Yeah, I think with men, what I've found is that sometimes men don't want to admit that they care a lot about the way they look. But they do. But they do, you know, and I can see which one's more than the others. Just by the way, every little step of the haircut, they're like checking over my work. So I think for a lot of men, it might be a bit of a challenge. But I am finding that over time,
Men in general are becoming a lot more high maintenance. And so they are becoming a bit more aware of their grooming.
You and I are having a bit of a chat. I'm asking you questions. You're answering my questions. Is this what you're doing when you cut hair?
Yeah, basically, I think it's the best way to spark conversation is asking questions and the mindset I always keep in mind and I share with a lot of the young ones that I teach barbering too is that always remember that the customer knows, is the expert on his own story.
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Chapter 6: How does barbering serve as a platform for communication and mentorship?
And if there's anything that he knows better than anyone, it's their own story. So just ask questions. I talk to guests all the time before they come on the show.
I use those exact same words. That's fascinating. Yeah. So you try to keep your questions pretty open then rather than very pointed?
Yeah, always open, always open. And there's your general questions like how's your day or you got much planned on this weekend? They're the general ones and they're just depending on their response and sort of guide the conversation from there.
Do they get stuff off their chest, these young guys, when you're cutting their hair?
Yeah, I've had a lot of those experiences where we've had some really in-depth conversations and conversations You know, conversations that I guess, for some reason, when they're in the barber chair, there's just this level of trust that a barber, I take it as a privilege that we have that customers or our clients feel like
they can speak to us and I think it has a lot to do with the fact that it's one-on-one and one-on-one I find maybe isn't something that a lot of males are comfortable with putting themselves in that situation to have a one-on-one deep and meaningful with another male.
But when you're going for a haircut, I feel like the haircut disguises the fact that there's a one-on-one deep and meaningful conversation going on. So one of my cousins who's been a long-time barber, he said, one way you can always view barbering is it's two friends catching up and the benefit, bonus out of that is they get a haircut out of it.
As they're sort of getting stuff off their chest, the other thing is, you know, ideally they're looking better and better too. They're looking sharper and sharper as the conversation goes on. I'm sure that's, I'm not even kidding you, I'm sure that's therapeutic. You know, I'm sure that's helpful to them as that's going on.
Yeah, I agree. I think it is therapeutic. And the fact that they know that they're coming to you and that they know that you're going to make them look good when they leave and feel better about themselves, I find it is therapeutic. I find the comment that I hear the most when the haircut's finished is like, just what I needed. That's exactly what another guy said. Oh, really? That's lovely.
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Chapter 7: What lessons did Charles Lomu learn during his time in prison?
So you came back to Australia to start to go to school, living with your dad. And how was your dad with you? Was he different in the way he tried to bring you up?
Yeah, I think it was a challenge for my dad because I looked at my grandfather as my father and I yearned to be my grandfather all the time. So when I came to live with my dad, I think the difference was my dad was feeling the pressure of working to provide for people seven kids or just trying to provide for a household and living in the Western world.
In a hectic city.
Hectic city, yeah. And trying to get used to just the hustle of the new life in the Western world. And so I felt like my father had a lot on his plate. And so I could see the contrast of my grandfather and my father's way of dealing with things. My father didn't have the time that my grandfather had to sit down with me, discuss in quality time. My father was always working hard.
When he came home, he was really tired. And so, yeah, I just saw a big contrast in the quality time that I had with my father. But he was a man who wanted good for us. But, yeah, I think just the pressure was a bit much for my dad.
It sounds like your grandparents were really good at kind of communicating with kids in a kind of a loving and moral sort of way. Was your dad affectionate with you and your siblings?
Well, in my father's generation, I feel like affection was something that was meant to be just understood. Like, you were meant to look at the hard work he was doing. You were meant to look at the fact that we have food in the fridge and to understand that he loves us.
Right. That's got to be just understood. It's just implicit.
Yeah, absolutely. And that's so... I never really heard the words, I love you, from my father.
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Chapter 8: How has Charles Lomu transformed his life through his work with youth?
Why rugby league players? What did he think that would do for you? I'm assuming he was a fan of the sport, but what did he think that would do for you?
I think he thought that it would be the best chance for us to succeed. to earn a good living and also help the family out, you know, to help the family out financially and just set us up on a good path.
So I'm not too sure at what point that became an idea to my father, but what I feel was when he took us down to the local football club, Elwood Saints, to start playing footy and started to see how much we... enjoyed playing the game and then started to really gravitate to understanding how the game works and that. And I guess we probably were effective at it.
And my father thought this is probably a worthwhile investment. Did you enjoy it back then? Yeah, I think I enjoyed it...
I think I really did enjoy it because I think playing at that time in my life, I think playing football in the team, in the club that I went to, it helped me to, I guess, learn how to just meet and start communicating with other people, you know, to get used to people outside my family circle. Because we have a tight family growing up, we only really stuck to ourselves.
And so going to play football was my time where I got to hang around other people, I guess, or just be exposed to other people where we were doing something that we enjoyed, where there was a coach who became, you know, like invested in me as well that was outside of my family. And I really enjoyed it. I found it fun when I was a kid, yeah.
Who coached you when you first started? Tell me about this coach you had because it sounds like she was a major influence on you as a kid. Yeah, we had a woman coach by the name of Robyn Connor. Was that unusual at the time to have a woman coach for a bunch of big, strong rugby league players, playing boys?
Yeah, I think it was. I mean, I didn't really recognise it at the time because she'd actually been coaching us since we were really young, under sevens. And just over the years, she just remained our coach. Yeah, I honestly looked at her like a mother. She was an Australian woman and, you know, I would spend a lot of time visiting and they would spend a lot of time
picking me up for games and just keeping me involved. And I just remember when they'd go out on family holidays because they had a son that was the same age as me. His name was Luke. We became really good friends. So they'll take me away with them on holidays. And I really enjoyed just the life lessons too I'd learned from Robin.
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