Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

After some brief email banter with my good friends Marcus Wroe and Simon Pickford, we agreed a joint challenge to each grow a beard for charity until January.

As most of you are probably aware, my genes  are sadly the wrong specification for growing designer facial hair and I run a significant risk of looking, at best, like a ginger Ray Winston.  That aside and the fact that I will loose my ‘baby faced good looks’ and most of my close family will hate it (including my mother who still tells me to shave everyday despite being aged 32), I have accepted the challenge on the basis I raise funds for a charity close to my girlfriend Katie, namely Barrett’s Oesophagus Campaign  http://www.barrettscampaign.org.uk/.

In summary, Barrett’s Oesophagus is an aggressive illness which sadly took the life of Katie’s father Michael in an extremely short space of time.  The funds we raise will go towards much needed research and through the work of Katie’s mother Mimi, supporting people with the illness and their families.

To give you some idea of how this may change our appearance, I have attached a brief summary:

Name                    beard history                     colour                   looks before                      looks after

Marcus Wroe     yes                                         black                     7/10                                       8/10 the appearance of a Trawlerman

Simon Pickford yes                                         brown/ginger    8/10                                       5/10 – Russell Crow from Gladiator

Richard Estrop  never                                     jury’s out             6/10 (in the dark)             3/10 – Ray Winston / awful !

All donations are very much appreciated.

Thank-you

Simon, Marcus and Richard