By Arnold Jansen op de Haar

Every Saturday we’re on Portobello market with the Holland Park Press market stall. We’re in the square, in front of the hairdressing salon on the corner of Tavistock Road. Many of the male hairdressers from the salon wear a beard, or to be precise a trendy beard and a moustache, aka a ‘beardstache’. The longer hipster beard (one up from ZZ Top) is dead, long live the beardstache! Well, that’s what they’re saying – I’m not really an expert.

I only recently encountered the beardstache. I had never come across the word before.

If Jesus had worn skinny jeans with super narrow legs, he would have been a hipster. And Conchita Wurst, who bears a striking resemblance to the Redeemer, is a man with a beardstache in a dress.

The guys from the hairdresser’s often wear skinny jeans with narrow legs, frequently combined with quite an open shirt, with a few tattoos peeping through several gaps. I think they all look rather gay. ‘Not so,’ said a photographer friend (without a beard), who always wears very cool shoes and who knows about such things, ‘only one of them is homosexual.’

I’ve never sported a beard. My hair, however, did use to cover my ears (until I turned fourteen, when ZZ Top was conquering the world), but here we’re talking about the 1970s.

The guys from the salon simply look cool. Because I smoke cigars they often ask me for a light. It seems as if no one in London possesses a lighter. Maybe it’s considered to be uncool. There is something in it, this hip environment, especially when you’re so uncool yourself.

Actually, I’ve never been a hipster. Raving mad, maybe, but never cool. But Notting Hill makes me aware of it. For example, passing hipster boys rarely drink normal coffee, they drink cappuccino with froth patterns instead, and for lunch they have something organic and gluten free.

Apparently Notting Hill is no longer exclusively hipster territory, because, according to several locals, the atmosphere is being spoiled by an increasing number of retired bankers.

Even so, I recently attended a rather cool event in ‘our square’. I’m referring to the wedding celebration of some friends of ours. They actually married on Valentine’s Day with just a few close friends present, and now they were holding a wedding lunch for a large party in the tapas bar on the square. The bridegroom is 76.

It was rather odd to be able to watch your own stall on a market day from a terrace decked out in white for the occasion. (We had someone looking after our stall.)

We were immediately served a glass of chilled sangria. I looked around at the party, which was, so to speak, rather diverse. And I looked at the bridal couple, both well into their seventies. When they were 17 and 15, they had been childhood sweethearts. But she had managed to locate him on Facebook, and so now they had married.

There they were, dressed in casual clothes. On Valentine’s Day they hadn’t exchanged rings, but instead had used his regimental key rings as rings to put on each other’s fingers.

It turned out to be a marvellous lunch, lasting for six hours, with tapas for starters, followed by shellfish, paella, lots of wine and a genuine wedding cake. With several bands who performed in the square, and, of course, ‘limbo man’. He’s there every Saturday. It turned out to be one of those afternoons which prompts you to phone your mother to tell her how much you’re enjoying yourself. Unfortunately, she’s dead.

And, yes, the members of the band Hey Zeus had beards. People started dancing and passers-by joined in. There was even an appearance by an Indian swami, or was it a guru? Don’t pin me down on that. He exuded love, and what’s more he had kitted out himself with coloured plastic balls and pieces of Lego.

A few mature babes in the party, dressed in daring outfits, hugged him. One of them beckoned to me. That was the second moment I wanted to phone my mum. It all turned out to be very Notting Hilly – marvellous.

I looked at the dancing 76-year-old bridegroom and I thought: you don’t need a beardstache to remain a hipster when you’re 76. For the time being, I’ll keep shaving.

© Arnold Jansen op de Haar
© Translation Holland Park Press