Ahead of Movember, which sees men across the country grow a moustache to raise awareness of prostate cancer, reporter Stuart Rust talks to Steve Tuck of West Oxfordshire who has survived the illness and is now a face of the campaign.

STEVE Tuck used to think that prostate cancer was an old man’s disease.

So when the 51-year-old from Sutton, near Stanton Harcourt, began rising several times during the night to urinate he was not expecting the diagnosis he eventually received.

Now, more than two years after having his prostate surgically removed, Steve has been selected as one of the faces of Movember, and is using his position to urge men to communicate more.

It was in November 2013 when Steve first began experiencing his symptoms.

He said: "I went to see a doctor because I was permanently tired from getting up to go to the loo so many times during the night.

"It wasn't uncommon for me to get up six or seven times in one night."

After a lengthy series of tests and just a couple of days after his 49th birthday, Steve was told he had prostate cancer.

He said: "It was not the present I was looking for.

"Everything you hear about prostate cancer talks about it being an old man’s disease, that it’s very common in older men, that more men die with it than of it.

"I know that the things I feared the most were telling my parents and telling my children. But for me I felt I needed to talk about it – how I felt about it and the different treatment options.”

Ultimately, Steve, who lives with his wife Sylvia as well as son Laurence, 23, and daughter Eleanor, 20, decided to have a radical prostatectomy, an operation which saw four robotic hands remove his prostate over a series of hours in June 2014.

But the story does not end there. Steve himself simply refers to this moment as the ‘beginning of a new chapter’.

He suffered from urinary incontinence and said it was about a year before he felt comfortable going out without wearing a pad, an issue that left a dent in his confidence.

"It can have a big impact on someone’s life. I know some men never regain full continence,” he said.

"I definitely felt very down for a long period. When you feel like that you put on a brave face. My wife and kids knew how I felt but I’m not sure many of my friends or colleagues did."

It is this reason that Steve says he got involved so quickly with raising awareness.

He started this process by delivering a talk about his experience to his colleagues at software company, Oracle. A few external speakers were at the event, including one from the Movember Foundation.

While he was aware of the fun side of Movember, a campaign which sees men across the country grow a moustache for the duration of November, Steve didn’t know the efforts the organisation made to raise awareness and funds for charity.

A year on from having his prostate removed, Steve donned a moustache and encouraged friends and families to donate to the cause.

And now, ahead of Movember 2016, he has been selected as one of the faces of the campaign.

“I just think it would be a good thing if we could be more open and discuss it. It’s still often a man’s partner who recognises something isn’t right and encourages them to go and see a doctor," he said.

“It makes perfect sense to me to turn my experience into something that positive, rather than just being a very grey part of my life.”

As one of the faces of Movember, Steve’s story will be shared across the country throughout the course of this year’s campaign.

With money raised, the Movember Foundation has funded over 1,200 game-changing programmes in prostate cancer, testicular cancer and suicide prevention around the world.

For more information visit movember.com.