Londoner Roy Harwood is happy to stay in Liverpool, after 38 years making suits for the business and legal community, he tells William Leece.

MEDICAL men of learning will tell you that living in Liverpool will shorten your life.

Roy Harwood would beg to disagree. He reckons that the move to Liverpool from his native London, more than 35 years ago, has given him an extra ten years. At least.

Certainly, he has already gone well beyond the age when most men have reached for the gardening gloves and the bus pass.

But all things come to an end, and, after nearly six decades in the business, Roy has finally hung up his scissors and declared an end to his bespoke tailoring business in the heart of Liverpool’s business district.

He had originally planned to be a printer down in London. But there was a delay until the printer’s apprenticeship was vacant, so to fill in the time the 15-year-old Roy, straight from school, took a temporary job with a firm of tailors, helping make coats at five guineas a time.

He’s a little coy about his age at first, but then realises with a philosophical smile that anyone can do the sums.

Work is a little second- floor studio-cum- workshop, in Old Hall Street, with the natural light an artist would die for.

Air conditioning is simply a matter of opening the window, there isn’t a computer in sight, and the atmosphere probably has not changed since the 1920s, let alone since the early 1970s when Roy set up shop.

And there are no regrets, not one.

"I’ve enjoyed absolutely every minute of it," he recalls over a mug of the instant coffee waiting for any visitor who drops by.

"I still get exactly the same kick out of it I did 30, 40 years ago. It’s a craft, you have to enjoy doing it, I think it must be in your blood."

Down in Savile Row, in London, he had a steady stream of celebrity customers.