Petworth barber hanging up the scissors after forty years in the town

Mr Benevenia opened his barbershop in Runacre Mill, New Street, in 1983, and said he’s looking to close on May 18; the date of his 41st anniversary in the town.

In a world of smartphones, Instagram accounts, TikToks and Tweets, Salvatore’s barbers remains happily anachronistic, having survived all these years through word of mouth and a large, loyal customer base alone, which has made saying goodbye especially difficult.

"I have a lot of great memories from working here, and I’ve made a lot of friends who’ve shown me a lot of loyalty,” he said. “They come from all over the place to see me: Chichester, Storrington, Horsham – everywhere. It’s all been word of mouth really.”

Mr Benevenia still gets emotional talking about the decision to close, which he has to do in order to take care of his wife, and insists that he still loves the job: “I really don’t know what I’ll do when the 18th comes around – what I’ll say or what I’ll do – I get emotional just thinking about it.”

Before moving his business to Petworth, Mr Benevenia worked as a barber in Horsham, where he still lives, and relocated to be closer to his customers: “When I worked as a barber in Horsham, I used to have a lot of customers come visit from Midhurst and Petworth, because there was no one there to cut their hair. They used to say ‘we’ve got a shop, but we haven’t got a barber!’

“At the time I didn’t even know where Petworth was. I found out where it was, found a friend, chatted to the landlady and her son – who was running the shop as a tobacconist – and they showed me the room. I took one look and said ‘I’ll take it’.”

And, just like they brought him here, it’s the customers who have kept Salvatore working for such a long time: “It’s the people here,” he said. “They’re very very friendly, they give me a lot of confidence and a lot of loyalty; I’ve been doing haircuts there for two or three generations now.”