This kind of skill might ideally be passed down from father to son, but Parris - who says that shaving was "one of the more mentionable subjects that Dad never discussed with me" - is not alone in missing out on this kind of instruction. In December an Essex school said it would be teaching shaving and other life skills that boys were not learning at home during regular "man days". TV hairdresser Lee Stafford says his father never showed him to shave properly either, and he regularly gives advice to clients whose luminescent neck rashes betray the fact they missed out too. "I'm sure there are a lot of fellas who've been going against the grain wondering why they are getting all these spots," he says. Or scraps of tissue paper.