Ivanhoe Beard Goes for Navy – It Must be Official ! (picture)

January 1957

South Yorkshire Times , January 19, 1957

Ivanhoe Beard Goes for Navy

For over six months Mr. Joseph Hill cultivated a beard which was the pride of Conisbrough and of the Ivanhoe Cycling Club, of which he is a member but shortly before Monday he shaved it off.

Why? ‘To join the Navy.’ said Joe.

On Monday morning Joe left his home at 13, Athelstane Road, to begin his nine years’ service with the Royal Navy – without the illustrious growth.

When his aunty, Mrs. ivy Hill, first saw Joe, minus beard, she reacted strongly. ‘Get your beard back on,’ she said. Friends didn’t recognise him, acquaintances passed him in the street.

But Joe had his reasons. At his recruitment interview in Manchester he was told that joining up with a beard was ‘just not done’ in the Navy. He would have to get permission to grow it, and this meant that in the first place no beard could exist.

In addition as our photograph shows, Joe hadn’t a full beard, and you can’t do things by halves in the Navy. The beard must spread from the ‘sideboards.

Joe was working at Cadeby Colliery before joining the Navy, and with some of his friends and members of the family he had a farewell party last Saturday.