It is no surprise that Ary Alan Ali has grown up much quicker than most Dundonians aged 21.
His first memory was fleeing his hometown in Kurdistan to a village two hours away due to fears that the then Iraq president Saddam Hussein would embark on a gas attack.
Then when he arrived at Dundee at the age of eight he was thrust into primary school while barely able to speak a word of English.
Such experiences are bound to have a reaction and for Ary it was to mature faster than many of his peers.
As a young teen in Stobswell he recalls rejecting the after-school temptation of drinking alcohol with his pals in the park to instead learn how to cut hair at A Class Barbers in Union Street.
His dedication paid off a year ago when he opened his own barbershop in Fintry, Trimology, which now employs six staff.
Rather than embracing youthful hedonism Ary wants to focus on more entrepreneurial opportunities, such as possibly setting up his own hairdressing academy one day.
When he turned 21 in March he did not go out and paint the town red but simply enjoyed a quiet meal with his girlfriend at Peel Farm, near Kirriemuir.
“I don’t party anymore,” he says. “You get nothing out of it.”
Here Ary also recounts his early years in Kurdistan, growing up in Stobswell, professional football trials, a boxing bout that was delayed for two years and outlines his plans for the future. The feature is split into the following sections:
- Saddam and Kurdistan
- Dundee arrival and pro football dream
- Business brain at school
- Running Trimology
- Future, boxing and home visits
Saddam and Kurdistan
Ary Alan Ali was born in 2001 into a large Muslim family in Chamchamal, Kurdistan.
The town’s location, close to the disputed territories of Northern Iraq, made it a possible target for military action during the Saddam Hussein era following the Halabja gas attack in March 1988.
As speculation mounted in the early 2000s that Hussein would target Chamchamal next, Ary’s family fled.
“I remember the time we ran away from Saddam Hussein,” he recalls. “He was invading Kurdistan. We ran away to the villages because he was bombing some parts of the cities.
“There were 30 or 40 of us. My mum, my uncle, my dad’s brothers and sisters, my mum’s brothers and sisters. My cousins were there.
“At the time one of my cousins lived in one of the villages so we went there and moved there. It was where my grandad was from. It was two hours to drive.
“We returned after a week or two. There was rumours he was going to bomb and do like he did with Halabja so we came back when it was safe.”
‘Scotland wants independence and Kurdistan wants the same’
Ary summarises the relationship between Kurdistan and Iraq as “a little like Scotland and England”.
“Scotland wants independence from England and Kurdistan wants the same from Iraq,” he says. “They are still part of Iraq. They want independence and Iraq is not letting them have it.
“I don’t think it is a good idea because Kurdistan is small. I am happy with it being part of Iraq.
“A lot of people back home want to be independent but they haven’t seen the world. If you ask people here who are Kurdish I don’t think they will want independence. Staying how we are now is no good.
“The Kurdish government is no good but with the Iraqi government money is paid on time.”
Chamchamal is an “old-school” town, according to Ary. “People are strict in terms of manners. If you are young and the elders are speaking you are not allowed to speak.
“Whenever I go back home they never let their kids go on their phones, or nothing like that.
“So whenever someone is at the house you need to look after the guest. It’s part of the culture.”
Dundee arrival and pro football dream
When Ary was eight years old he left Kurdistan with his mother Shano to join father Alan, who arrived in the UK months earlier as a refugee and was living in Dundee because he had friends in the city.
“He worked for me and my mum to come here for a better life,” Ary says. “He worked really hard, working in takeaways. He did double time, extra shifts, whatever, just to get the money.
“Eventually he had enough money to get a visa for us and then we came here.”
Ary’s younger sister Raza initially opted to stay with her grandma in Kurdistan when her brother and parents left. Now 19, she lives in the UK.
In Chamchamal the average maximum temperature in July and August is 40C so Ary was understandably confused when he moved to Dundee in the summer of 2008.
“The road was frosty – I thought, ‘wow, there’s actually glitter on the floor’,” he remembers.
“There was snow back home but there you actually get all four seasons. It’s not like here where in the summer it rains.
“When I came it was summer time and there was glitter on the floor. I thought ‘are the roads really like that?'”
‘I knew no English’
On arrival he could only speak Kurdish but that soon changed as Ary, who lived in McDonald Street for a year before moving to Tannadice Street, settled into life at first Rosebank and then Dens Road primary schools.
He later attended Morgan Academy.
“I knew no English,” he says. “At PS2 I had a book that said ‘A for apple’ and I used to carry that book around everywhere.
“I soon learnt the language because I went out a lot playing football. I always wanted to be a footballer.”
The Manchester United fan, whose favourite player is Cristiano Ronaldo, immediately joined Dundee United social club and went on to earn a 10-year award marking longevity.
“One of my primary teachers thought I would make it in football but I wasn’t dedicated enough,” Ary reflects.
“I played in Stoke’s Britannia Stadium for the Scotland trials. I had trials for Dundee and Dundee United. I was a striker but at the time I was too small on the pitch.
“I left football at 17. I doubted myself and thought I wasn’t going to make it but if I’d kept going I think I would have.”
Eventually Ary grew to be 5ft 10 inches tall – four inches taller than Lionel Messi – but by adulthood his focus had shifted to becoming a businessman.
Business brain at school
While he never enjoyed the studying side of school, Ary showed at an early age that he had an eye for a deal.
At Dens Road he enjoyed the school exercise to make products to sell at funfairs.
“I was always the best,” he says. “Some people made cakes, some made maybe a football and if you scored you get £2.
“I made heist masks like Batman ones. My products were £2 and my mates’ were 50p and I came back having sold them all, with £20 in my pocket.”
At Morgan he used his contacts to get certain goods at a lower price than he would sell them for a profit. “I was always a businessman,” he says.
‘People in my year would drink in the park’
When he was 14, Ary says he had to make a significant choice about how to spend his after-school time.
He could either hang out with his friends drinking alcohol in the park, or with Sam, a friend of his father, at A Class Barbers in Union Street.
Ary chose the latter.
“People in my year would drink in the park but every day after school I used to go to the barber shop,” he says.
“I watched Sam cut hair and that is how I learnt. He has always cut my hair and told me how to run a business.
“I spent more time in the shop with Sam than in my own house. It came to a point when I worked full time there.
“I started going every day and during school holidays between 9am and 6pm.”
Running Trimology
Ary left school at 16 to work full-time at A Class.
That year his father, who runs Corfu Kebabs at the Seagate and N Lindsay Street, took him to Swansea where he was introduced to Imad Khalid, the owner of Trimology Barbers.
“I was working at A Class and told him that I want a shop like this in Dundee when I am older,” recalls Ary.
This aspiration came to pass in 2021, after Ary suggested opening a Trimology on the site of a former Betfair in Fintry Road.
The shop, Trimology’s 11th and first outside Wales, took a month to refurbish ahead of its opening in June 2021.
“Imad owns it and I run it on his behalf,” says Ary. “I could open another Trimology and I could run it but it is his franchise. He has helped me out.
“I saw that the bookmakers was closed and thought it was good.”
‘If I’d known they were across the road…’
At the time he did not realise there were already two competitors – Barber Stop and Sommerville’s Barbers – directly opposite.
“If I’d known they were across the road I wouldn’t have moved there,” Ary says, but he says the first year has still been a success.
“In a year I’ve got a lot of regulars,” he adds. “I have six staff – five and one trainee. I have taught three of them myself.
“They are on good wages as well. They are not on an apprenticeship wage. They know how to cut hair.”
‘I was spending more time in the shop than I was at home’
Becoming a boss at such a young age can’t have been easy.
“I just show people respect and when you do that they will show you it back,” says Ary.
“The more I tell the staff to do something they will do it but if I leave it for 15-20 minutes they will do it themselves. I don’t always need to tell them what to do.
“Me learning how to run the shop all comes down to Sam at A Class. I was there for so long – seven years. I was spending more time in the shop than I was at home.
“He was a strict boss. He didn’t want to get on to me but now I know why he did because I now see the staff. That was part of his job.
“Had he not got on to me I would have never done the job he wanted me to.”
Future, boxing and home visits
The 21 year old is eyeing an exciting future in and out of the salon.
In 2019 he took up boxing in 2019, only for lockdown to delay his first bout, a Cancer Research UK fundraising event administered by Ultra White Collar Boxing.
It was due to take place on his 19th birthday in March 2020, only for it to finally go ahead in front of more than 100 people at Skyaxe, Brook Street in February 2022.
“I drew but he was much more experienced than me. He has had amateur fights but this was my first,” Ary says.
“I felt that if I had put my hands up more I could have done better. It was my first fight but it won’t be my last.”
‘Maybe I will start an academy’
At work, Ary also has his eye on bigger things.
“I never saw myself as being the owner of a business. No one did. But, you know what, you just go with the flow,” he says.
“I don’t want to do barbering my whole career. It is a help to get me to where I want to be. But that’s a surprise.
“Maybe I will start an academy to cut hair, I don’t know.”
Every year I go back to visit and there’s a different newborn baby. It’s good. I love my family. We are so close.
What Ary definitely does know is that he wants to spend more time with his vast extended family in Kurdistan.
He has eight uncles and two aunts on the side of his father, and one uncle and seven aunts on the side of his mother.
“Every year I go back to visit and there’s a different newborn baby. It’s good. I love my family. We are so close,” he says.
“I go back every year, sometimes twice or three times a year, it depends how lucky I am. Since I have had my business I have only gone back once but I am looking to go back by the end of the year.”
Conversation