Various cultures and specialists on Goodge and Charlotte Streets offered by 19 and 20th century emigres, migrants and Bohemians including French, Russian, Italian, German, Cypriot, Bengali. Flats and rooms above the shops accommodated these as well as people from other parts of these islands working in the West End, Middlesex Hospital, vast Rathbone Place Postal Sorting Office and the local hotels.
Nicolas Louki arrived in London from Alethriko, Cyprus early 1955, stopping with a cousin in Chalk Farm and taking up work with Sid Garber, a barber, at 3 Betterton Street off Drury Lane and living in rooms there too. Later, when his wife Erini, a seamstress, and two of their daughters came over, he found a place to live, cut hair and shave faces at 233 Kingsland Road Hoxton.
By 1959, Erini and Nick had worked hard, she in a dress factory above shops on the pre Centre Point St Giles High Street and he Jack Linden’s place at 38a. They had also saved to buy a place of their own to live in Willesden, bringing the rest of their children over and later having a couple more.
By 1967, Jack and his wife, Helen who staffed the street facing tobacconist and confectioner kiosk, had decided to sell the barber shop and retire. The business was offered to Nick Louki who scraped the money to buy the goodwill from the Lindens. He ran it, supported by Erini, until he died in 1977 with the shop later operated by son in law Bambos and, since his own retirement in 2022, the third generation Grandson, also Nicholas.