Mechanic's big U-turn onto new career path

Mar 22 2009 by Mika Smiles, Sunday Sun

DITCHING a spanner for a pair of styling scissors is not an obvious career path.

But 27-year-old David Thompson — the brains behind Middlesbrough’s male-only salon Rude Grooming — says the job U-turn has paid off.

He and his business partner Andy Gray, 23, are hoping to roll out their brand of salons across the North East.

With a PlayStation 3, free bottles of beer for clients on a Saturday and laddish reading material, Rude Grooming, on the town’s Borough Road, is a blokey haven.

Boasting clients including Vic Reeves and Middlesbrough FC players, the salon has certainly proved popular.

David, of Mandale Park, Thornaby, Stockton, explains why he made the decision to ditch the grease monkey image for good.

He said: “After leaving college I just followed suit with the lads.

“I applied for a load of different jobs and I got one as a mechanic at Mitsubishi in Darlington.”

David, who lives with his wife Jo, 32, and 10-week-old son Freddie, says he always harboured an ambition to become a hairdresser and quickly got sick of life under the bonnet.

He said: “In the first two years I really enjoyed it, in the third year I didn’t enjoy it as much and in the last year I just stuck at it to get my qualification.

After qualifying as a mechanic David took a holiday in Majorca.

And when he came back he said it was time to get real with what he wanted to do and took up another apprenticeship — this time in a unisex salon — and enrolled in hairdressers’ college.