FARMINGTON – When Junior Turner started working as a barber in Farmington in 1968 there were six barbershops in town.

Come the first of September there may be only one.

After 40 years in the same location, Turner is ready to spend more time on one of his passions, working on and restoring antique cars.

Turner sold his business, Turner Tendercuts, to Heidi Voyce of Farmington who has been working at Dick’s Barbershop for the last eight years. Both shops are on Broadway.

Voyce along with the manager of Dick’s Barbershop, Jackie Tardif, and co-worker Paula Raymond will move to the new shop, Broadway Barbershop, in early September, Voyce said Wednesday.

“It takes at least 30 days to get through the Board of Licensing so the move will take place Labor Day weekend,” Voyce said.

Meanwhile, the owner of Dick’s Barbershop, Wilma Hobbs, who had just this week learned of the change, has already started advertising for someone to take over the shop.

“We’ll see what happens. I would like to see it stay a barbershop,” Hobbs said Wednesday. “Farmington is plenty big enough to support two,” she added.

“It’s not easy to give it up. I’ve pondered this for a long time. It’s a great business and a strong business so it’s hard to walk away,” Turner said Wednesday. “When you enjoy your work, it is hard to give it up.”

Turner, like many of the kids whose photos line his walls, had his haircut at what was then Howatt’s Barbershop. He watched the barbers, father and sons, and was intrigued with the art of barbering, he said.

“They were always friendly and smiling so I thought . . . what a way to make a living,” he added.

Graduating from Hanson’s Barber School in Lewiston in 1968, Turner returned to work for the Howatts for 10 years before buying the business and changing it to Turner Tendercuts, he said.

“Hanson’s had 32 barber chairs in the school but when I went there there were so many students, they had to double up on chairs,” he remembered. “When I came back here there were six barbershops downtown in the 1960s and 1970s.”

But, then long hair started coming in and short hair went out. To keep up with the trend, Turner took styling courses to help him weather the trend that did a reversal in the 1980s and 1990s, he said.

“To stay in business, you had to be able to style hair,” he said. Some barbers couldn’t make the adjustment.

Now he can boast of cutting the hair of men who then brought their children and now grandchildren in for a cut.

It’s also true that people do confide in barbers. “I could write a book,” he said. “But it’s interesting . . . that saying that kids say the darndest things . . . they do . . . and they say it in front of parents who want to crawl under their seats,” he said.

While looking forward to keeping busy on the antique cars and maybe doing a little fishing and hunting, Turner has some definite feelings about leaving the business.

“I’ll miss the business and the people,” he said. “They have been very good to me.”