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The Great War (1914-1918) Forum

Remembered Today:

Beards


PhilB

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Would it cause any problems if a chap was to wear a gas mask with a full beard ?.

Roland.

That is the official line today. Personally having used the modern respirators for NBC (or whatever they call it now) I'd not like to risk trying to use one with a beard...

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And I've just remembered a story recently (in Flight International IIRC) of some Pakistani pilots (Sikhs I think) being 'retired' because their beards interferred with their oxygen masks and they refused to shave on religious grounds.

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In the RN it has always been the case that you have to parade on Requestmen and request permission to 'cease shaving'.

Normally permission is granted for 60 days and then the result inspected. If it is of a standard unlikely to bring the Navy into disrepute permission is given to 'carry on'.

If, subsequently a man wants to shave his beard he has to ask permission to resume shaving, and the result will be inspected.

I understand that today when action is likely i.e. NBC masks will probably be worn, then everyone with a beard is simply told to resume shaving (that appears to have happened as the RN went to the Falklands).

Thus, there is no need for a general rule on this, it is up to the captain of the ship to order what he likes, possibly following 'advice' from the MoD.

On submarines there is unlikely to be an order to resume shaving as I understand it.

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Here's the photo of Major Augustus John in 1917 I mentioned earlier

Gloria

149932.jpg

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  • 4 years later...

As I've just joined, I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing by reviving an old thread rather than create a new, but I have a question about entitlement to beards.

I run a living history group, the Gordon Highlanders 1914-1918, and we have a small medical side. I have had an enquiry from a potential member who wants to join as a doctor, but he has a beard. Hoping that some doctors who were given temporary commissions during the war may have been allowed to keep their beards, I asked the AMS Museum if this was permissible, and they replied certainly not. That appears to be conclusive. However, does anyone have any evidence to the contrary, or is anyone able to suggest an alternative role? I do have a postcard photo of the Scottish Churches Hut at Montreuil which clearly shows a chaplain with a beard, so I guess that's an option I could put to him.

The trouble is, the chap comes with a daughter who'd make an excellent nurse. If we lose him I guess we lose her too!

Thanks,

Tom

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So long as the daughter doesn't have a beard as well, I would advocate turning a blind eye. Many modern re-enactors have attributes that are not perfectly 'in period'.

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As I've just joined

(waves)

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So long as the daughter doesn't have a beard as well, I would advocate turning a blind eye. Many modern re-enactors have attributes that are not perfectly 'in period'.

She most definitely doesn't! However, I suspect that there was no rule about nurses not having beards, so a bearded nurse might be more acceptable than a bearded doctor! Seriously, I'm not a stitch-counter, but I would like to try to get this one right.

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(waves)

Andrew, I'm struggling with your wonderfully oblique reply "(waves)". Does it mean:

a. Consider the Navy?

b. Hello!?

Seriously, did the RND have their own doctors, would they have been allowed to wear beards, and might they have been stationed either in hospitals used by ordinary Tommies or deployed on loan to hard pressed CCS serving other ordinary Infantry divisions?

This could provide a solution, albeit perhaps rather forced.

Regards, Tom

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I have a group of medals DSO (WW1), OBE, QSA, KSA, AGS, 1914 TRIO to an officer of the Royal Engineers who carried on service until late 1938..... There is one photo with the medals but a very bad one I tried to copy it to post..... He was wounded in the face in October 1914 and returned to England....... After recovering he was permitted to grow a beard to cover the very bad scars, no plastic surgery in those days........

Oh yes I also served in the navy and have a beard....... But also did 7 years with the Army and had to carry a copy of a letter in my wallet at all times that I was in Army uniform because I was given permission to continue to wear it........

Mike

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Andrew, I'm struggling with your wonderfully oblique reply "(waves)". Does it mean:

a. Consider the Navy?

b. Hello!?

Option B :thumbsup:

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Oh yes I also served in the navy and have a beard....... But also did 7 years with the Army and had to carry a copy of a letter in my wallet at all times that I was in Army uniform because I was given permission to continue to wear it...

An apposite moment, I think, to bring in "The Battle of Codson's Beard" by A P Herbert, at the time Adjutant of the Hawke Bn, RND:

THE BATTLE OF CODSON’S BEARD

I’LL tell you a yarn of a sailor-man, with a face more fierce than fair,

Who got round that on the Navy’s plan by hiding it all with hair;

He was one of a hard old sailor-breed, and had lived his life at sea,

But he took to the beach at the nation’s need, and fought with the R.N.D.

Now Brigadier-General Blank’s Brigade was tidy and neat and trim,

And the sight of a beard on his parade was a bit too much for him:

“What is that,” said he, with a frightful oath, “of all that is wild and weird?”

And the Staff replied, “A curious growth, but it looks very like a beard.”

And the General said, “I have seen six wars, and many a ghastly sight,

Fellows with locks that gave one shocks, and buttons none too bright,

But never a man in my Brigade with a face all fringed with fur;

And you’ll toddle away and shave to—day. But Codson said, “You err.

“For I don’t go much on wars, as such, and living with rats and worms,

And you ought to be glad of a sailor lad on any Old kind of terms;

While this old beard of which you’re skeered, it stands for a lot to me,

For the great North gales, and the sharks and whales, and the smell of the good grey sea.”

New Generals crowded to the spot and urged him to behave,

But Codson said, “You talk a lot, but can you make me shave?

For the Navy allows a beard at the bows, and a beard is the sign for me,

That the world may know wherever I go, I belong to the King’s Navee.”

They gave him posts in distant parts, where few might see his face,

Town-Major jobs that, break men’s hearts, and billets at the Base;

But whenever he knew a fight was due, he hurried there by train,

And when he’d done for every Hun—they sent him back again.

Then up and spake an old sailor, “It seems you can’t ‘ave ‘eared,

begging your pardon, General Blank, the reason of this same beard:

It’s a kind of a sart of a camyflarge, and that I take to mean

A thing as ‘ides some other thing wot oughtn’t to be seen.

“And I’ve brought you this ‘ere photergraph of what ‘e used to be

Before ‘e stuck that fluffy muck about ‘is phyzogmy.”

The General looked and, fainting, cried, “The situation’s grave!

The beard was bad, but, KAMERAD! he simply must not shave!”

And now, when the thin lines bulge and sag, and man goes down to man,

A great black beard like a pirate’s flag flies ever in the van;

And I’ve fought in many a warmish spot, where death was the least men feared,

But I never knew anything quite so hot as the Battle of Codson’s Beard.

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Steven

For your infomation the quote from History 47th Division Page 21. The following is quoted from 1st Corps Routine Orders dated April 12th 1915.

"Moustaches - "It is observed that of late the provisions of King's Regulations regarding the shaving of the upper-lip have been disregarded . . . . Any breach of these regulations will be severely punished in future".

John

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King's Regulations Para. 1696. The hair on the head will be kept short. The chin and under lip will be shaved, but not the upper lip. Whiskers if worn, will be of moderate length.

John

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