It’s Movember again!

Two nice-looking chaps with moustaches: A. H. Cloutte and J. Beresford, with the 'demon' attacking the strokeside oar. Despite that, the Thames oarsmen did not have a problem winning the 1911 Silver Goblets.

Today it’s the first of Movember, the first day in the month when we are to celebrate the moustache. Well, it’s actually a global campaign to raise funds for men’s health, especially to fight prostate and testicular cancers. Celebrating Movember has been a great deal among rowers, men and women, in Great Britain, and British Rowing has stood behind the campaign in earlier years and is doing so again this year.

However, the Mo-Movement is growing, just like your moustaches should do this month, and more and more men and women are joining in by donating money for this good cause. Here is the official website “Movember 13” in the USA.

Just like last year when I wrote about this on HTBS, I had to go back in time to find some oarsmen with some stylish ‘Mos’, and on top you see Arthur Cloutte and Julius ‘Berry’ Beresford (bow) of Thames RC, winners of the 1911 Silver Goblets at Henley. This photograph has been famous as the ‘Demon picture’, a devil ‘attacking’ the stokeside oar.

My children and I supporting Movember (photograph taken yesterday, just before Halloween's trick-or-treating).

To round off this piece, allow me to quote myself from last year:

‘Although, I wholeheartedly support a campaign like this, my dear wife, Mrs. B., made it clear already when we dated (in Wales, as a matter of fact) in the 1990s that our relationship would never last if I grow a moustache, or any other facial hair. Then, on top of that, a couple of years ago, our cute children could not stop laughing when I showed them my old Swedish drivers license from the beginning of the 1980s showing me with my elegant ‘Mo’ – but to you who are allowed: Grow and Groom!’

It’s Movember – Grow A Mo!

So, you think it’s November? Well, you are wrong, it’s Movember. What is Movember you ask? Movember - ‘celebration of the moustache’ - is a global campaign to raise funds for men’s health, and in some countries, like the UK, the campaign is mainly concentrating on raising funds to fight prostate and testicular cancer. So on 1 Movember/November many men around the world sign up with a clean-shaven face at www.movember.com to raise money for this campaign, promising not to shave during the whole month: Grow a Mo!

British Rowing and many of its rowers, both men and women, ‘Mo Bros’ and ‘Mo Sisters’ (of course, the later with a fake or painted moustache), are participating in this month-long event. Last year, £11.7 million was raised around the UK alone, British Rowing's magazine Rowing & Regatta writes in its latest issue.

To actually find a famous British oarsman with a really good looking ‘Mo’, I had to go back in time, to two of the most well-known oarsmen of their time: Ernest Barry and Harry Blackstaffe, two handsome chaps. In the photograph on top, Barry, in the bow-seat, was the professional world champion in 1912, and Blackstaffe, in the stroke-seat, was Olympic champion in the single sculls in 1908. Between them, their clean-shaved friend Wally Kinnear, Olympic champion in the single in 1912.

Although, I wholeheartedly support a campaign like this, my dear wife, Mrs. B., made it clear already when we dated (in Wales, as a matter of fact) in the 1990s that our relationship would never last if I grow a moustache, or any other facial hair. Then, on top of that, a couple of years ago, our cute children could not stop laughing when I showed them my old Swedish drivers license from the beginning of the 1980s showing me with my elegant ‘Mo’.

But to you who are allowed: Grow and Groom!