The moustache chronicles

Movember is not, surprisingly enough, anything to do with the RSI that people have incurred from excessively performing the Mo-Bot during 2012, but rather a month-long event where people across the world grow moustaches to raise awareness and funds for men’s cancer projects.

Over recent years this event has grown enormously and has become a firm fixture in the charity calendar, particularly amongst male sport stars. Fairly confident of my facial hair growing abilities, I undertook my Movember effort with the hope that this would be an endeavour that I could do on a fairly casual basis that wouldn’t significantly change my daily life. How wrong I was.

The first week of the month was yet another case of comparing “who has got the biggest…”, which does seem to feature quite heavily in a lot of male interaction. Nevertheless, the macho bravado of the participants of Movember did not often match up to the reality as many struggled to escape the pubescent (in some cases pre-pubescent) stage of growth.

Well into the second week, my top lip was developing nicely; some jibes about my likeness to Basil Fawlty were beginning to come my way, but I was ready for a bit of teasing. However, this unfortunately set a precedent that I know that all Movemberites suffer from.

For some inexplicable reason people seem to feel that it is socially expedient for them to comment on your appearance. Such comments as “Do you think you look good with that?” or “You should definitely get rid of that; you look terrible”, were common occurrences, but why?

Surely everyone knew that this was a charity event and yes, I did have a rather acute awareness of how bad I looked. Indeed, you know you look bad, if your particularly middle-class vicar asks the congregation to welcome Freddie Mercury (me) in the middle of his sermon.

My Mo also ensured that the cold winter month was yet another of singleness. For rather obvious reasons, the Mo proved to be a chick repellent rather than a chick magnet. Nobody asked whether I wanted to “share a portion of chips at Vialli’s” and the walk home after Notorious left me miserable and lonely, apart from the occasion shouts of “paedo!!” from our esteemed friends that frequent South Leamington.

By this stage I was well into Week 3 and I must confess that I had slipped into a period of addiction. The selfie with its cunning allure had become my way of journaling my Movember journey, but it quickly overtook my life, as I became indulged in a life of posing and vanity. Every time I was away from my camera I found myself searching for my next photo opportunity.

You realise that when you spend more time taking photos of yourself than completing your essay, you have a serious issue and that’s why I joined PA (Photographer’s Anonymous – where Instagram is replaced by human interaction).

Whilst the lure of the lense is not one to be underestimated, my photographic log did undoubtedly raise awareness, although this was admittedly perhaps more “this guy is a ****” than “I really should donate something to help prostate and testicular cancer”.

In short, this was a month where I was ostracised, marginalised and criminalised for merely possessing a couple of hairs on my top lip. By the end, the sleepless nights due to itchiness had driven me insane and in all honesty my memory of that tortuous final week is fairly hazy. Nevertheless although Movember had subjected me to one of the most trying periods of my life, I was very glad to have endured it.

Men’s health, or more specifically prostate and testicular cancer, leads to tens of thousands of deaths each year within the UK. The contributions that many of you made have helped improve treatment methods and facilities for those who are diagnosed with the disease.

However, many of the deaths that occur, particularly amongst those in their twenties and thirties are preventable. Therefore growing the Mos has hopefully helped break the stigma surrounding regular check-ups, and raised awareness about the fact that early detection can make all the difference.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank all of my Mo-bro’s and Mo-sista’s for their participation and support during the month. As a University, we managed to raise several thousand pounds for the cause, which was a fantastic effort.

I’d encourage you to start preparing for next year’s challenge, if you think you’re man enough.