Men of the Year – part one

Masculinity

2020 has been a disaster but you can also discover a lot about people by seeing how they react to a crisis. And undoubtedly many people have stepped up to help and inspire others right across the country, from every walk of life. For our part, we felt it necessary to go ahead with our inaugural Men of the Year list – we wanted a ceremony and party but there you go – because we have to mark the times, to identify who has stood out as role models no matter what has happened that year. And the beauty of our take on the Men of the Year concept is that we should mix ‘real’ people with famous faces. For undoubtedly men in the public eye have the change to set a fine example for a large amount of people, but we also look to people in our immediate worlds, and the pandemic has certainly produced a huge around of such ‘normal’ folk, many of whom have actually become national figures.

In short, The Book of Man’s ‘Men of the Year’ celebrates those men who have done incredible things in mental health, social action and in breaking boundaries around masculinity.

Over the coming days we’ll be revealing who’s made the list and sharing interviews with them.

Here, is part one:

Tim Burgess

When lockdown first came down in March, amidst the pervasive dread, people rallied quickly it seemed, adopting new routines involving exercise, home schooling, and other structures to manage days and weeks at home. Along with this there were a few public figures who developed endeavours which quickly became national pastimes, sourcing of collective pleasure which helped with mental health strains. Tim’s Listening Party was one such collective experience. Developed by Tim Burgess from The Charlatans – who had done listening parties for many years for his own work – he saw that bringing lots of different artists to the table would be a beautiful unifying thing, and so it proved. The idea was simple – listen to the album while watching the artist tweet along to the tracks, providing info or funny stories about the making of the records – but boy did it take off, perhaps in the way it provided depth of experience (listening to a whole album) as well as community. Tim Burgess, the nicest guy in music, worked his socks off to make this happen and for this, for providing such a warm, creative platform which grew and grew, he is a very deserving man of the year.

Read our interview with Tim.

Robert Hunningher

Robert is a chef who fed 800 people a day from his soup kitchen during lockdown, which ran out of the Humdingers bakery in Hoxton in London. Like many other business owners, Robert was faced with an uncertain future for his bakery and catering business, but he managed to put that to one side and worked 60 hours a week to make vegan soup and sourdough for those struggling to eat during the pandemic. He was eventually awarded a British Empire Medal by the Queen, and now – arguably a better prize – he will be receiving one of our Men of the Year trophies. Quite simply, his indefatigable insistence on helping those in need is a truly inspiring example for the rest of us.

Jay Flynn

Jay’s Virtual Pub Quiz was another of those big lockdown communal sensations. Jay Flynn was a publican fond of quizzes, who decided to start up a virtual quiz for his mates to continue their Thursday night tradition – famously he accidentally made his event public on Facebook and was astonished to find a hundred thousand people log on for it. Since then, the quiz grew in numbers, featured guests like Stephen Fry and Jonathan Ross, and it has raised around £800,000 for charities. Charities which include the homeless charity which rescued Jay when he was on the streets in his twenties – a story which came to light when a book of the quiz came out and only served to further establish Jay as an extraordinary everyday hero. We love you Jay.

Read our interview with Jay.

Hassan Akkad

A Syrian refuge who is a Bafta-nominated film-maker (for ‘Exodus: Our Journey to Europe’), and someone who not only continued to campaign for refugee rights – including with the organisation Choose Love – but worked as a cleaner in a COVID-19 ward during the pandemic. Hassan had been at the forefront of Arab Spring democracy protests in Syria when he was imprisoned and beaten by the regime, before fleeing to Britain, as he documented in his film. But it was another film, one filmed after his shift at Whipps Cross hospital in east London, which caught hold this year, an impassioned and emotional address to Boris Johnson on behalf of the immigrant NHS workers excluded from the government’s bereavement compensation scheme, made the PM do one of his now trademark U-Turns. Hassan puts a very raw and real and humane face to these issues and is a fine example for anyone wanted to stir hearts and minds into caring more for others.

How it started How it’s going pic.twitter.com/BDohE30Ive

— Hassan Akkad حسان عقاد (@hassan_akkad) October 9, 2020

Viggo Mortensen 

Viggo has never been your average Hollywood star, as his career of powerful performances in an incredibly eclectic range of films has shown, as well as his pursuits in other areas like fiction, poetry and photographer. Now he has ended 2020 by releasing the film of the year, Falling – his directorial debut. What a work of art it is, a deeply felt and expertly crafted examination of male dysfunction, family trauma and the effects of dementia. At a time when we are locked in with our families more than ever, for better or for worse, this honest portrayal of the difficulties, regrets and also joys of such shared experiences, proves deeply moving. As Viggo told Jason Fox in his podcast, it was not autobiographical exactly but it was personal. And this, the bravery of putting yourself emotionally out there in your work, is what we can all learn from.

Read our interview with Viggo.

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