POSTMAN Dan Eisenhandler is going to take a while to get used to his new look.

On Saturday night, the 47-year-old braved the razor as the beard he has lovingly grown for the past eight months was shaved off.

So great was the challenge, that Mr Eisenhandler asked friends and family to sponsor him and help raise money for Oxford’s Sobell House Hospice.

But, by his own admission, his organisational skills were almost not up to the task of a trip to the barbers.

Mr Eisenhandler, who lives in Bladon, said: “I didn’t plan it brilliantly – I told everyone we would do it at 6pm, and the barbers only opened until 4.30pm. They were really accommodating and they got a chap to come and open the doors specially for us, but in the end, because there were so many of us and it was a sunny day we went and did it in front of Woodstock Town Hall.”

Oxford Mail:

Clean-shaven Dan with Nigel Holt, Cyrus Mower, Sue Preddy and Christine Casson

About 20 people watched as their friend’s beard fell away and blew gently down Woodstock High Street.

The next morning, he said, he felt “ever so strange”.

He said: “I looked in the mirror and saw this baldheaded alien figure looking back at me. A lot of people were extremely generous in their donations.”