37.My New Face

After 15 years, I have shaved off my beard - compare this photo to 'my image'.
So instead of sending dozens of emails to all and sundry, this post will inform anybody who is interested - maybe all 6 of them!

In 1993 we spent a holiday on a couple of gulegs off the western Turkish coast. The pre-trip instructions did not mention the different voltage on the boat - incompatible with my electric razor. So instead of buying a Gillette razor locally, I decided to 'let it grow'. The 18 fellow travelers were all strangers, and Judith did not mind [see below].

There were some other problems. Peter Reynlds, the tour director, was a little odd. Although he flew with the group from London, and we all wore the yellow discs of ACE, he did not reveal himself until after arrival, when we had got out of the airport. And when he photographed any site, he made sure that no human beings appeared in the view. He died some years later.

Peter believed that we should have 'a relaxing time'. So he never told us the next item on the programme, or its timing, until we were ready to move off the boat. I found this very irritating. Also, he had no guiding license for Turkey and was liable to be denounced by jealous Turkish guides and arrested. So his explanations were given surreptitiosly, with one of us serving as lookout.

Our meals were prepared on the boat by the cook who was the captain's assistant. But one of our group could not eat onions - which is vital in salads. On the second day luckily I had the simple idea of asking for a small dish of chopped onions, that we could add individually to our food.

I did not enjoy the tour. While we were sailing between sites, I could not sunbathe - I would have burned. Nor could I read - motion sickness prevented it. And when we were moored in the evening, the electric light in our cabin was not sufficient for evening. And we were asked to be economical with the boat's battery power.

Our cabin had an annoying smell of sewage. Clearly there was a leak from the sewage container on the boat back to the toilet. And they emptied the sewage during the trip illegally, within territorial waters. When the [British] owner visited us on the last day, his reaction to deny it was as offensive as the smell. But I am sure that I was right.

One of our group was a retired GP - he and his wife were very pleasant people. He mentioned that he had an aching neck, and I suggested the use of a collar to restrict movement. He was well and active, but several months later I read his obituary in the BMJ. I wrote to his wife and she told me that he was found to have cancer of the pancreas. So it was a secondary in the cervical spine as the first symptom - unusual.

At the end of the tour, I looked like Yasser Arafat with my stubble. When we got home, I was going to shave it off, but most people said that it 'looked nice'. So we bought a beard trimmer instead. With my bushy beard, and sparse hair on top, Heather remarked that I looked 'upside down'. But soon I removed the moustache. Trimming it accurately was tricky, food tended to catch in it, and I claimed that it interfered with my 'social contacts'.

So a few days ago I shaved it off. Judith came back from shopping, and we put away the merchandise. Then we had lunch. We chatted - I do not listen to the radio during meals. In the afternoon I emailed our daughters that my beard had gone - with a copy to Judith. That's when she first realized it...

None of our friends noticed it without being told. But they said that I looked younger. There were two adverse effects: shaving now took longer, and I actually bought a new razor. And people no longer offered me a seat on the tube. Ah well.