Devon signaller Paul Jarvis’s bosses can all breathe a sigh of relief after he shaved off his multi-coloured beard.
Paul, a panel signaller at Plymouth, has been notorious for turning up to work with his facial hair dyed a variety of eye-catching colours. But his chameleon-like fuzz has now disappeared for the foreseeable future after he took a razor to it in the name of the Cornish Air Ambulance charity.
Paul, who joined the railway in 1988 as a carriage cleaner and became a signaller two years later, said: “It has been known to be different colours from time to time, like green, purple, blue and red. It went down quite well with my workmates but I got some strange looks from the management.
“I fancied a change but wanted to do something for a good cause so I decided to turn it into a fund-raising event for the air ambulance.”
He coloured his beard red, white and blue then collected sponsorship money for its removal. The public shave took place at his local club in Torpoint, Cornwall.
“I’m not sure how I feel about it yet,” Paul said after the event. “It is time-consuming having to shave but my face is a bit less itchy now.”
Paul’s bare-faced courge raised more than £460 for the air ambulance charity, helped by colleagues at Network Rail and First Great Western staff.