Welcome to November, it is a busy month. The last full month of year before the slide of December to the Christmas Holidays.
November is the month of Remembrance, where round the world we unite to remember the fallen men and women of the armed forces. This year has special significance as it is 100 years since the start of the Great War also known as World War One. Next week we will dedicate a whole week of the Code to Remembrance week and look back to the Gentleman of 1914. I shall write about our special week on the next From the Desk missive, but rest assured that the whole week will be rather special.
This month sees the men of the world grow the hair on their top lip to raise money for charity. The phenomenon of Movember has grown and grown like the gentleman’s facial hair and now is a fixture on the face of the year.
This event was started in 2004 by a group of men in Australia, who chose to grow a moustache for 30 days to raise money for men’s prostate cancer and depression. From those 30 men in Australia, it has grown to over 4 million participants, who have raised a total of over £346 million for charity. We salute you gentleman of Australia and the world.
One small thing, Gentleman of the world, could we please stop calling it a ‘mo’, it just sounds wrong. There is a penchant for either abbreviating or co-joining words to make weird hybrids. I realise it stems from our Australian cousins and may sound good with that accent attached but to my ears, it sounds wrong. Lets us be proud of a fully formed Moustache!
This year, for the first time, I will be participating in this fundraising event and growing my own respectable moustache. It will be the first time in my 42 years that I have grown facial hair. I remember my father for many years having a very good moustache, through the 1970s and well into the 1980s. So I know that I should look reasonable with the appendage under my nose. My thoughts turned to what kind of moustache I might attempt, I have visions of Tom Selleck as Magnum PI though it will probably end up as Principal Rooney from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off!
Usually the charity of choice for Movember is Prostate Cancer, a noble cause for which to raise awareness and money, but I shall be raising money for two other noble causes. Firstly, for Ascape, a Charity of which I am Co-Chair of Trustees. Ascape is a charity that provides adventure holidays for children with severe Asthma, eczema and anaphylaxis. We take these children on a trip and show them that they can do fun things and control their condition. It is a cause that is close to my heart as I suffer from Asthma. The other charity I will support in this endeavour is The Royal British Legion, the Poppy charity.
I shall document my experience on our Twitter & Instagram feeds and I will add it to my weekly ‘From the Desk of’. If you wish to donate please follow this link here, the money will be split equally between each charity.
Hirsutely Yours,
#1PG
