At first it was a challenge to see how long he could grow it but after a year, he noticed he was thinking about his impressive facial hair differently.

“Eventually it became a bit of a shield,” he said.

“You can’t really see the face behind the beard, so you can hide behind it a bit.” 

That shield came in handy when he was working nights at an Albury bottleshop, allowing him to better deal with some of the more unruly patrons that passed though.

But after losing a close friend to suicide last year, Mr Healy's attitude towards his shield changed.

“I'd moved to Albury to study environmental science, and I had a good mate who used to study with me quite late in the computer labs,” he said.

“One night he just wasn’t there.

“I got home and had a look around on Facebook, all I saw was rest in peace.

“No-one would tell me what had happened.

“Eventually I found out that it had been suicide, but no-one wanted to talk about it because it was still taboo.

“That ultimately became a big motivator for me to get rid of the beard.

“We lose at least 2500 people a year to this thing, the majority of them are blokes.

“We’ve got this image that we have to man up and not talk about our problems, but that’s exactly how so many of us get stuck in dark places.” 

Mr Healy will shave his prized beard at the Dude Hut on Australia Day, and is calling for donations which will go towards phone counselling service Lifeline.

“We have to keep services like Lifeline open, so that people have somewhere to turn, some chance to get out of the place they’re in,” he said.

‘It’s also about empowering each other to just ask if they’re OK.

“We don’t do that enough.

“All of us are carrying something, whether it’s a sick family member, financial stress or what have you.

“If we support Lifeline, we’re supporting ourselves.”​

Dude Hut owner Chris Maney said as a men’s hairdresser, his business was uniquely placed to start conversations about mental health.

“Our industry is hands on, people tend to open up a bit.” 

If you need help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.