NOTES FROM THE NEW NORMAL

MICHAEL DEACON

In a strange way I felt bereft. No more idly stroking it, as if it were a family pet. No more sculpting it, like a topiarist trimming a prize yew

Boris Johnson has been doing all he can to show that Britain is back in business. He reopened pubs. He reopened restaurants. He reopened hairdressers, cinemas, hotels. Yet, despite his best efforts, the most potent symbol of lockdown stubbornly remained.

My beard.

Like many men, I began growing a beard at the start of lockdown.

And, over the course of these strange and difficult months, it has been a faithful companion. It has stuck with me through thick and thin.

Its progress, chronicled assiduously in these columns, has been a source of pride and wonder.

At the same time, however, I know I have a duty to help get this country back on her feet.

And that means sending out a clear and unambiguous message that, in the words of the Prime Minister, our national hibernation is at an end. So yesterday, after a period of deep and sober reflection, I made up my mind. The beard had to go. A difficult decision. Sadly, though, its number was up. In any case, even my son had started to make fun of it. The other day he told me it had grown so long I should put it in bunches.

(He’s developing a fine talent for insults. At the weekend I came back from a run, hot and sweaty. “Dada,” he said. “You smell like a Peperami.”)

 As it turned out, shaving off my beard wasn’t easy. It was so thick that my electric razor got stuck and turned itself off.

Manfully, though, I persevered. And at last – after only a few brief pauses to try out various styles of moustache, including the Kitchener, the Mainwaring and the Chaplin – it was done.

I stared into the mirror.

I’d become so used to the beard that I hardly recognised myself. Suddenly my head looked so bare.

So featureless. So… oval. Like an egg, with a little tuft of cress sprouting from the top.

In a strange way I felt bereft. No more idly stroking it, as if it were a family pet. No more sculpting it, like a topiarist trimming a prize yew. No more combing it, like a baboon grooming itself for ticks. In the beard’s absence, my fingers were twitchy. Anxious. They no longer knew what to do with themselves.

Still, not everyone shared their sense of loss. After I’d swept up my haystack of shavings I went downstairs. My son looked up.

“Good,” he said, and went back to Youtube. 

No more lockdown beard. And now, no more lockdown column.

Today, my diary comes to a close. I’ll miss writing it. But it feels like the right moment to stop. For one thing, it’s now the school holidays. And, despite the drizzle, a small boy is shouting something about ice cream.