Love me, love my beard

Memoirs of a Bearded Man.

I've dabbled in the world of the mutton, the goatee and the mouche, but poor results have brought me to the desperate truth that I'm never going to be able to grow the kind of full and flowing beard that I've always dreamed of. The beard of nursery rhymes and fairy tales.
An awkward kind of bristle is all I've ever been able to muster, and bizzarely it sprouted a rusty colour, For those that have seen me, you'll understand why I've given up that enterprise.
(For those of you that haven't, but wish to, click here).

So needy was I of a chin fringe, that I turned to the prosthetic.
One fine, sunny summers day, on a pilgrimage to the Promised Land (Hamleys, Regent Street, London), picking through Fancy Dress Corner, I stumbled across my Holy Grail.
Accompanied by a good, if not a little strange, friend, I made my way to the cashier's desk to secure ownership of my very own beard. After having the singularly liberating experience of stripping naked and abusing the store's sanitary facilities, we made our way out onto the street. For two amazing hours, London was terrorized by a beardyman and his cohort.
I drew quite a crowd in the already packed areas of street entertainers around Covent Garden, playing Hooplah with no degree of accuracy or success, but finding myself carefree and reckless in my attempts to loop the huge jar of sweets. Approaching businessmen, tourists, foreign students and the homeless to pepper them with irreverent questions was a source of such great joy to me.
Screaming at the top of my lungs 'I don't want a Whopper, I want a Big Mac', whilst standing outside Burger King. Asking directions to Birmingham. Commenting on other people's choice of clothes/bags/teeth.
The bemused smiles and bewildered stares of passers-by were like a drug. I found myself in a state of relaxed awareness that i had never felt before. I've always been awkward around people, shy and withdrawn, but I had found a way to make myself more confident and comfortable. And I rejoiced in the me that I had become.

So the beard came home to Kent.
My beardless sidekick returned to London to purchase a beard of his own, and a bearding partnership was born.

I felt that my new persona had to develop into a more definite character. The bearded me was so unlike the clean-shaven me, that a name had to be found for him. With leather pork-pie hat, small, dark, round glasses, fawn flasher's mac and briefcase in hand, A. J. Shufflebutt took to the streets of Chatham.

Accompanied by a similarily attired D. B. Dumblebug, A.J. went on his travels, again, asking peculiar questions and making embarrasing observations about the locals.

Much of the time was spent giving chase to one another. Hurtling through the High Street, in and out of shops at breakneck speeds, with shouts of 'Stop Him! He stole my baby!'. One lurking around the corner of a shop, the other enquiring of increasingly suspicious shoppers if they'd seen a man, about so tall, with a coat like this, oh and a ginger beard, in the vicinity.

The crowning moment, and, second to witnessing the birth of my daughter, the most insane episode in my life, was being escorted from the main shopping centre by three security guards and two members of the local constabulary.
I was told that there was a tape in existence of me and my bearded accomplice that lasted for two hours, the content of which was an amalgam of several CCTV cameras, depicting our flight through the town centre. Allegedly we were 'frightening the elderly'.
'How ridiculous', I exclaimed. I asked the officers to look around them, at the gleeful faces of young and old alike as they witnessed my interrogation. How many of them looked fearful of me? I opined that I was bringing a little joy to the dull, drab lives of Chatham-folk.
(If you haven't already, come see the delightful Chatham Girls).
They'd have something interesting to go home and tell their families.
I was told I was welcome to shop in the complex, but only if my beard was removed. I likened the request to asking everybody with hairpieces, toupees and wigs to remove theirs. I argued that I had just as ligitimate cause to wear my beard as they their own false hair. My reasoning fell upon deaf ears, and I was therefore summarily frogmarched to the revolving doors.

Another highlight was the storming of the Norman Castle in Rochester.
In the Castle grounds, armed with plastic sword and breastplate, viking helmet upon my head, angel wings gracing my back, and beard lush and full in the fading light, Messrs Shufflebutt and Dumblebug set forth to conquer the stronghold.
Alas, the locked doors of the keep proved too strong a defence, but with beards held high, we marched back to base camp, heckled by a gang of mountain-bike mounted pre-teens.