A BARBERSHOP in Bude has received some slightly unusual gifts in the post during January.

The team from Just Gentz, a barbershop based in Queen Street, has been receiving black cards with poetry penned in silver writing, all signed by an ‘M Jones’.

Chloe, who works at Just Gentz, said: “On the first week of January, we received a poem from a chap signed ‘M Jones’, called ‘My Friend the Robin’. To begin with, we thought it was one of our clients, but every week since then we have received a new poem written on the same black card with silver and white handwriting.

“I thought that I would Google a few of the lines from the poems, and what came up was a few stories of hairdressers from across the country getting mysterious poems — the same ones we have received, on the same black card and same white writing.”

The author of the works has been named the ‘Banksy Poet’, with his whereabouts, identity and reason behind his poetry being unknown.

Speaking about the unusual experience, Chloe from Just Gentz told the Post: “Well, when we got the first one (poem), I thought it must have been one of our clients, so I asked all the staff but no one recognised the name. On the back of the poem was written, ‘This poem has been hand written by its composer Mark Jones 2018’. So for the first weeks we just assumed it was a nice local man, we must have cut his hair at some point and he decided to send us this lovely surprise. Obviously we thought it was a one-off thing.

“The following week, we received another and then we thought it was a bit of a mystery going on, so we started asking our clients if anyone knew a Mark Jones, with no joy. I thought I should quickly Google the name, but nothing really came up until I typed in Mark Jones poems, and then a few stories came up on the same two poems we had received that had been sent to a few hairdressers up country and down country, Truro being the closest to us.”

Chloe said that one hairdresser further up in the UK had received a third letter, so the staff at Just Gentz became excited at the prospect of receiving yet another poem. She continued: “We all got a bit excited waiting for our third to arrive, but then we got a fourth as well. I think the fourth poem is our favourite, as it’s a nice uplifting one and he signs them all off with ‘Keep your chin up, keep smiling’, which is really uplifting and lovely.

“The few links from Google that I have found, no one else has received a fourth letter — I could be wrong though — but we have started to look forward to getting them now. I’m not sure how many more we will get, if any.”

Chloe added: “I have no idea why he picked us — maybe he was here on holiday in the summer, or maybe he’s just spreading a little bit of happiness to unsuspecting people like ourselves. It definitely put a smile on all our faces.”