PERSONAL COLUMN

On growing a moustache

KENNETH ALLSOP

I grew a moustache a few months ago. It was not the result of deep deliberation. It was not

intended as a banner, a protest, a blow struck

for Fuller Participation of Upper Lips, my solo production of Hair, or anything of sym-

bolic or social significance. It was merely the outcome of a whim, an idle impulse when one morning, as I stared semi-conscious at my lather-smeared reflection, it crossed my mind that, as well as saving a minute or two of scraping, a soupcon of interest might be added to this incredibly boring routine by seeing what would develop if I by-passed that area with the razor.

This trivial experiment with a temporary confection did not turn out quite the frivolity

I expected. First, I discovered the true mean- g of radiant fatherhood. Women, who ttle about childbirth, do not realise what ey are barred from by perhaps the greatest xual inequality. All that incubatory dawd-

ng in the womb's darkness does not corn- are with the sensual, visual fulfilment of his process of biological creativity. . . . The

rst darkening haze of organic growth ; the id peep of the young tendrils, like spring

orn sprouting on ancient furrowed land ; en. after the tentative uncertainty—the wilderment at liberation after years of

arsh repression—the joyous unfolding. Once e nose has got used to its furry companion there are, to start with, forgetful startled

oments, like one's feet encountering a cat rled up in the bed) there is the profound isfaction of being at grassroots contact

ith the rhythms of the mystery of life. No oman—at least, not many women—can derstand what it is like to grow a ustache.

There was another, less agreeable, conse- uence. I had been absent from television a time. Immediately I put my new face fore the camera there was a clap of thunder ross the land ; from the shires and the fens, ut of the great cities of the North and the uthern suburbs, arose a great baying and apping of fangs. Letters and postcards, en telephone calls and telegrams, rained on me. Some were jocular, some wag- shly insulting, some mildly chiding. Many ere abusive, going on to enumerate their dis- tisfactions with my general appearance. I as likened to Neville Chamberlain, Che uevara, a Victorian villain and a middle- d junky. The moustache itself was vilified a walrus, as fungus, litter—one viewer said was plainly a nylon stick-on.

Among the reprimands there were many ich struck a monotonous chord, typified

tile 'FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE SHAVE IT F. MAN, AND SMARTEN UP!' stern in from Folkestone, from, deducibly, a red military man in whose commanding nd was perceptible the fine tremor of either age or quivering rage. This was represen- ve of a tireless body of steady correspond- ts. those who also boil away in the press ut how long hair has strangled our ndards of decency. (How many unnoticed rvous breakdowns have followed the sud- emergence of skinheads? Where should muskets be pointed?) .s is the blaneo brigade who want vision run on Territorial Army or tward Bound lines. They will not rest tent until every presenter is issued with

a neat, subfuse uniform of boilersuit or battle blouse, channel and contract numbers worn on a metal collar tab clearly visible to viewers wishing to report him for slackness or untidiness on duty, or for disciplinary offences such as answering back during an interview or displaying dumb insolence dur- ing a politician's peroration. Each pro- gramme could open with a brief public kit inspection : ballpoints held at the present arms position, while a camera pans from the short-cropped skull for a check on his regulation boots (no zips or elastic sides).

As I say, the peremptory barks from these Rsms and traffic wardens of the box are normal. An unexpected bonus my moustache brought was a renewal of missives from the Mad Axeman of Poole. Almost everyone engaged in the arts or journalism—at least, anyone whose views have the faintest reek of liberalism—must have had letters from this furious flogger-by-post. They bear signatures modelled on the pseudonyms under which W. C. Fields banked his money in remote mid-west burgs—an Otis V. Snodgrass with literary ambitions. The last I had was signed 'Spike De La Mare Wordsworth Tennyson Hawkins'. They are always identifiable (a) by the economy-size sheets speckled with dried foam-flecks and (b) by the elaborate, red and black, italicised and capitalised pat- terns produced on the overheated machine from which his violent broadsides are fired. I had badly missed the attentions of this Grand Wizard of the worldwide Klan of `Disgusteds' since I last did The Critics and The World of Books (he is a rabid radio listener, as well as Tv-vigilante and news- paper-comber) but the moustache drew him like a rogue rhino taunted into charging by the scent of human blood.

So I can continue feeding material to a psychiatrist friend who Is compiling a fascinating dossier (from me and other

sources) of the Dorset avenger. Apparently surprisingly little is documented about the psychopathology of the poison pen writer—

except for the obvious facts, known to all policemen, that behind the anonymous ferocity lurks a timid and frustrated charac- ter. My friend regards this as an oil strike of clinical research material which already has provided an entire scenario of character analysis. More, he now swears that out of this thick file of letters has evolved (like those faces which jerkily construct themselves as you draw lines from dot to dot in a children's puzzle) an identikit portrait.

Although the precise address isn't yet known (the letters are headed 'Coronation

Street, Castlebridge', etc.), my friend has now narrowed the lair down to a square mile. He is shortly taking down a team of spotters. armed with facsimile sketches, to test his theory that the abnormal can be tracked down and recognised by this new science of psychological detection. His only fear is that his quarry will expire before the hunt is organised. 'It only needs TV to put on a par- ticularly pretentious discussion, with say Susan Sontag, Christopher Booker, Nancy Mitford and Richard Ingrams', he said gloomily. 'h would be like driving a labora- tory rat mad by bombarding it with stimuli from all directions. He'll have his final thrombosis, and well have lost our best specimen of sublimated compulsive homi- cide since Jack the Ripper went back to dis- secting frogs.'

Yet it is not this freaky fringe which is of most interest. What I find distinctly disturb- ing is that the majority of moustache- attackers were genuinely anguished and dis- rupted by my trifling redecoration. I don't question their right to find it loathsome or hilarious, but whereas I doubt that they would cross the road to upbraid a neighbour for wearing a gaudy tie or having blackheads on his nose, Britain's electronic villagers manifestly consider that the license fee buys a piece of the property—not only the pro- grammes but their personnel. I suppose in the telly age the regular appearer is in the still newish situation of being an animated national obelisk, a built-in part of the 405- line landscape, to which changes are passion- ately resisted in the cause of tradition. Since I became bewhiskered, no letter has yet arrived at the BBC from the Society for the Preservation of Ancient Monuments ; but the tenor of complaint is similar to that which might be aroused by fitting Nelson with mod bell bottoms or defacing Peter Pan in Ken- sington Gardens with stone sun glasses.

It is more domestic than that. Unmis- takably, many correspondents felt the out- raged dismay they would if a man strode uninvited into their sitting room and began pasting up new rolls of wallpaper. As a piece of moving wallpaper, I can appreciate how upsetting this would be. But I am left with an uneasy impression that packaging is more important than content, that what is mostly wanted from television is nightly soothing reassurance that the familiar furniture of the airwaves is in its secure and proper place, unchanged, changeless.

Will all TV commentators, as they are gradually eroded by the ravages of time, have to be propped up embalmed in their chairs like Bates's mother in Psycho? In the mean- time, how do I get rid of this thing? Do I phase it out subtly, bristle by bristle? Or do I take an electric razor to it in vision and risk arrest for inciting public disorder?