A SHARP shaving barber has made an art out of creating intricate holiday haircuts for boys.

The minute the bell rings for the last day of a school term boys start flooding into Alice Gray’s barber shop in Ferryhill, County Durham.

For many schools, hair style and colour is as much a part of the uniform as a blazer and tie.

So throughout the holidays youngsters can embrace whatever wacky hair designs their parents will allow- without worrying about the consequences of breaching school rules.

Miss Gray, of Razor’s Edge, said: “Many schools say pupils should have a plain haircut and don’t allow colours or shaved heads so we get lots in who want something interesting and fun during the holidays.

“They seem to love stars, stripes, spider’s webs, all sorts of things and we’ll give anything a go.

“We’ve done full head patterns on men before but it is mostly children during the holidays now."

Miss Gray trained with her mother Andrea Gray and recently took over management of the salon, on Market Street, which has been in the family almost 20 years.

Both have perfected their skills with clippers to compile a catalogue of creative looks which include tribal designs, logos and zigzags.

In 2008 the duo went mobile with their craft and ran a stall at Appleby Horse Fair where travellers queued up for a makeover.

Miss Gray, 25, said: “We don’t work to patterns, they just tell us what they fancy and we draw then shave it in with mini clippers.

“How long it takes depends how intricate the design is and how still they sit, about 20 minutes is average.

“We’re quite an unusual shop, we do traditional cut-throat shaving to modern male grooming, so nothing ever surprises me but we have done some interesting ones, one of the hardest was probably a Liver bird for a Liverpool football fan.”