Naked ambition in a good cause

WE have many reasons to thank the stripping starlets of the Rylstone and District Women's Institute. Men are thankful to them for producing the first girlie calendar which they could buy openly, display proudly, even in front of their wives - and fantasise about secretly.

Women can thank them for proving that you don't have to be under 25 to be a sex symbol, a shattering revelation to our youth-obsessed media.

The WI will be forever grateful to the Rylstone branch for beautifully subverting the jam and Jerusalem stereotype.

Helen Mirren will have thanked the ladies for giving her another excuse to strip off on in the movie of their adventures, Calendar Girls, which premiered in London this week. Rural North Yorkshire is also indebted to the Rylstone gang, for demonstrating that there is more to the place than sheep and steam trains.

And last but not least, the leukaemia charities are more than grateful. They benefited from sales netting £578,000 when the Rylstone WI naked calendar became a worldwide hit.

So if anyone deserves being immortalised on celluloid, it is those 12 North Yorkshire women who posed in the buff behind flower arrangements and apple presses.

But there were unforeseen consequences. Most notably we had to suffer a rash of copycat calendars, as people of all builds and hues decided that they, too, should strip off for good causes.

Just as that other film favourite The Full Monty (what is it about the British cinema and nudity?) spawned many a fun male strip act, so the calendar girls begot all manner of amateur glamour photo shoots.

Not surprisingly, alcohol helped fuel this explosion of nudity. That explains how several pubs managed to cajole staff and regulars to divest themselves of their vests. The Swan at Sherburn-in-Elmet and the Peacock in Goole were two where they got their goosebumps out for the lads and lasses.

But booze wasn't always necessary. It is telling how little encouragement folk needed to bare all for public display. Forget the famous British reserve: we drop 'em at the drop of a hat.

That was certainly the experience at Askham Bryan College near York. A charity glamour calendar featuring some of the male students was the joint idea of student union coordinator Debbie Carr, her boss Angie Wray and the then union president Helen Cussons.

They did not have to coerce the lads to disrobe. The trio simply put up posters asking for volunteers, and they came a-knocking. Soon a gang of 15 models were being posed around the campus holding various tools of their future trade including spades and, most worryingly, chainsaws.

And no, this wasn't just confirmation that all young farmers are mad as muck. "Most of them were actually horticultural students," Debbie points out.

It was great fun, she said, adding that she has every admiration for the participants. "It was November. It was freezing. These poor guys were toddling around in boxer shorts or less."

But they gritted their chattering teeth and got on with it, because it was all for a good cause - the NSPCC.

Angie took 75 photographs, which were whittled down to a dozen calendar shots. Not all showed hectares of bare flesh: "They did whatever they were comfortable with," Debbie said. "Some of them were still partially dressed, some were fully dressed."

But not all were so modest. "Some of them were getting carried away and we had to say, you can't do that.

"There was a football wall, which I will leave to your imagination. We didn't use that one. We said, 'just put your clothes on and we'll start again'."

But Debbie was not flustered. "I was a resident warden as well. I have seen a lot of things these students get up to. They're quite strange, some of them."

The 2003 calendar sold well, particularly among the models themselves. "They were buying them for aunties, grans, mums for Christmas. The guys in the shots bought more calendars than anyone else, I think."

Now Debbie approaches the start of each new month with trepidation. Fortunately, the office calendar "is behind me. It's my boss who has to look at it."

When York chefs cooked up a similar wheeze, leading restaurateur Michael Hjort felt obliged to peel off too. "It's meant a lot of mickey-taking," he confessed.

The boss of sophisticated eateries Melton's and Melton's Too, he was approached by the organisers of the Raw Cooks calendar. And before he knew it, he was pictured inside Melton's being transformed into Mr April. What sauce.

"It's given a lot of people some fun. I think it might have portrayed the establishment in a slightly different context.

"I don't think it won us any additional customers. It probably won us some goodwill."

So will we be seeing him as the naked chef again? "I don't intend to make a career of it."

One of the first places to take the Rylstone idea and run with it was the Maustin Caravan Park at Kearby near Wetherby, back in 1999.

Run by sisters Judith Rayner and Hilary Haresign, the park has its own bar and it was there that talk turned to the WI's naked calendar.

"The men said 'we could do that'. We said, all right - go on then," said Judith. "This was after a few pints of beer. We thought the next day they would probably change their minds, but they all followed through with it."

The photo shoot was done quickly - it was a chilly day - and Judith was delighted with the result. Pictures were taken all around the caravan site, and included one of a regular fishing in the little pond.

"We had all shapes and sizes take part. They were fantastic, they really were. It was something really wonderful to be involved with."

Then came the media frenzy. Sky News, Calendar TV, a courier despatched to take a calendar to a German television station, foreign news interviews.

"Richard and Judy wanted us, but they wanted everybody naked. But we said we only did it once, for charity."

As well as raising an impressive £7,000 for health causes, the calendar challenged the clichd image of caravanners. "They're actually very fun-loving people," said Judith.

And the film Calendar Girls has got them thinking. "Last weekend we were laughing and saying Hollywood wanted us. We couldn't decide who was going to play all the men. We went from Brad Pitt to Sid James."

Updated: 12:14 Friday, September 05, 2003