Lucinda Hawksley, writer of Moustaches, Whiskers and Beards
It's interesting, while I was writing the book I came to realize that the most heavily bearded times in Britain are either when women are in power, such as Elizabeth I or Queen Victoria, or when there's a big discussion of feminism - and it is really interesting that in the last few years there's been so much more discussion of feminism. You get a woman on the throne and men go, 'Oh, got to have a beard.' It's really strange. Or in the 60s or 70s with all the kind of, you know, big thing about women's lib, suddenly the beard becomes huge here.