Hair today and gone tomorrow for Preston Bus Station barber Steve

The concourse’s longest-serving tenant is only moving a matter of yards to a new unit in the refurbished terminus.

But it will still be an emotional moment when he packs up his scissors and locks up his shop for the last time.

“It will be a bit of a wrench to walk away from the place I’ve worked in for four decades,” he said. “But I’m only moving round the corner and I hope most of my customers will come with me.”

Steve, 63, moved into the bus station during the summer of 1977. But the shop is now being demolished as part of the £23m refurbishment of the Grade II Listed building.

While hairstyles have changed over those 40 years, the view from his salon has remained pretty much the same, overlooking the passenger stands in the south west corner of the building.

Steve has gathered a stack of hilarious tales from his barber’s chair. Many feature in his book “Tales From Behind The Hair” which was published in 2014 . “There have been some belters,” he laughed. “It took me eight-and-a-half years to write and I just wanted to break even. But it really took off. When I started in hairdressing in 1969 everyone had hair, hair and more hair. It was hard to tell who was a woman and who was a fella. Now we can’t go any shorter, otherwise we’d take their brains out.”

Steve re-opens in his new unit on Tuesday.