When popular Co Down barber Garry Jackson announced his retirement three months ago after more than 30 years in business, the news took many by surprise.
Back in February, Garry, 59 and his wife Mari, 61, from Holywood took to social media to reveal they would be stepping back from the long-established Garrys Barber Shop and handing over the reins to their colleague, Rafael (Raffa) Santos.
Garry spent over 30 years in barbering, having "cut his teeth" in a traditional, long established and highly regarded barber shop in Belfast, where he worked hard to gain a good reputation and clientele before progressing to open up his own business in Holywood back in 1990.
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Since then, Garrys Barber Shop has become a firm fixture on the town's High Street and a true hub of the local community with Garry building long term relationships with his customers and even cutting the hair of three generations of the same families.
But Garry's plans for retirement didn't last long as he had no sooner arrived to enjoy his new life in the town of Nerja on the Costa del Sol when he was back cutting hair.
"My close friend Babak Eshraghi has had a salon here called Studio 17 for the past seven years and we came to an arrangement where he will continue cutting ladies hair while I look after the gents," Garry told Belfast Live.
"It has been a bit of a shock to the system starting all over again from scratch after 33 years in Holywood. Starting any new business is a challenge but starting a new business in a foreign country with a completely different system and the language barrier is very, very challenging.
"I'm very thankful to all of the new customers who’ve sat in my chair for their haircut and I’m definitely getting there.
"Babak and his wife both come from Sweden so we have a lot of Swedish customers along with Americans, Canadians and people from all parts of Europe. That's what Mari and I love most about this town - there's such a great mix of nationalities from all over the world," he added.
A respected member of the barbering community as well as a model, Garry regularly hosted events within the familiar surroundings of his shop to highlight men’s well-being alongside music nights with his singer-songwriter wife Mari.
Mari, who is also a former nurse, founded and directed Harmony Live Holywood Music Festival and also organised Holywood Culture Night with support from the local business community.
Rather than put their business on the market and risk their loyal staff losing their jobs, Garry decided to hand the business over to Raffa.
He explained: "People used to come to our shop in Holywood from all over Northern Ireland and we knew around 75% of our customers by their first name. It was very much all about community, with three generations of families coming through our doors.
"My biggest decision was about how I would get out with the minimum amount of fuss. I would imagine that I would have had lots of people breaking my arm if I had put the business on the open market.
"What I didn't want was someone coming in and getting rid of all our staff who have been working with us for many years. I also didn't want too much upheaval for our customers as I felt a huge moral responsibility towards them.
"I consider myself to have the best job in the world as people come in and you know all about them. Working in a barber shop with all these lovely people coming in is like hanging out with your friends all the time and I really didn't want to change all that."
It is now just 12 weeks ago since an emotional Garry announced that the time had come to wish everyone a fond farewell as he and Mari headed off to enjoy a new life in sunny Spain.
But even Mari was shocked at how quickly her husband picked up the scissors again within days of landing in Spain.
"Babak has been saying to Garry for ages that if he moved here permanently, he should rent a chair at the salon so we were only here a week and away he went to work!" she said.
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