Jimmy Kennedy
Miles Platting and Ancoats are changing. Regeneration plans have finally started and are underway. Hundreds of new houses are to be built and thousands of homes will be improved as well as providing a new school. New shops will replace old ones, new industry will bring jobs and a better way of life for young families. Every street will see changes and improvements.
The regeneration plans are huge and very welcome to most of us, but new brick and concrete are not the only thing that is important to the welfare of a community. There are other things that we must not lose sight of.

It would be a shame if, so blinded by modernisation, we lose sight of our heritage, or the strong desire and belief in the importance of remembering our people both past and present, or we forget to honour the threads that made the strong fabric that we call our community.

If there is any point to the existence of the Have Your Say magazine, if there is any point to having hundreds of very supportive members and thousands of enthusiastic readers, if there is any point in having open days and meeting up with old friends, it has to be the sense of belonging and being part of that fabric, for the past, for the now, for the future.

Each Issue of our magazine is designed to not only remember what has been and the good people we know or sadly miss, we also try to include people who provide employment or give a useful service. So, when we heard that a local hairdresser/barber is this year celebrating 26 years of attending to the hairdressing needs of thousands of local people we thought it was well worth a mention.

Thirty five years ago a young Collyhurst lad not yet 15 years of age made what was at the time a very brave decision. Rather than just follow in his fathers footsteps and work in a local foundry, Jimmy Kennedy decided that he wanted to train as a hairdresser. So when an opportunity came up he was quick to take it. Since that time he has not wanted to do anything else.

Jimmy was born in Reather Street and went to school at Abbot Street and St Pat’s. He still has very vivid memories of people and places from his early years in Collyhurst.

Pauldens was a large department store in the city centre which housed a hairdressing business called Murray’s Salon and that was where the young fourteen and a half year old lad started to learn his trade. By the age of sixteen he had progressed to his own ‘chair’ and as confidence grew he was trusted to manage one of the other salons.

In 1980 Jimmy got married to Jean and over the years they have produced three sons Steve, James, and Scott, now all grown up.

February 1982 was the time Jimmy started Kutters Salon, less than a mile from the city centre on Oldham Road and for 25 years he has built up many regulars both men and women of all ages who, rather than go into town and pay more for the same, feel more comfortable in this small clean salon with its community style attitude.

With only himself and some part time help from Vicky, Jimmy is doing what he has always wanted to do and he does it well.

This is what Jimmy said about his clients, “Ever since starting Kutters 25 years ago the amount of support and encouragement I have had from day one, has been amazing and I feel so lucky to have made so many friends, I really do feel that through my door walks some of the best people in the world”