Farming Breeds: The ‘Naked Calendar’ ladies
Join us for a funny, irreverent look at some of the characters that make the British countryside what it is. Our tongue-in-cheek guide puts characters such as the retired Major, the “perfect” next-door farmer and the young tearaway under the microscope. Here we meet the “Naked Calendar” ladies – the village women baring all for charity…
It started off as a joke.
There they all were, a few glasses of wine on a Tuesday night in The Crown, when one of the girls said: “You know what we ought to do, we ought to do one those nude calendars.”
Cue a few sniggers, exchanged glances (some excitement, some abject terror), a bit more wine and the idea was born.
A quick ring round and soon 12 local lasses ranging between 19 and 63 were signed up. “I’m the gamest old bird of the lot,” Maggie shrieked, demanding to be involved.
They did the sums, decided which charity to support, got a couple of local businesses to contribute and, hey presto, it was all under way.
A local photographer even offered to take the pictures for nothing. When the day of the photoshoot arrived, he turned out to be a man wearing skinny jeans who looked like he could do with a haircut and a square meal who told them he was working on a portfolio for the New York Times (even though thus far his work had only appeared in the local newspaper).
Boyfriends and husbands had been told in no uncertain terms to stay away. Rumour had it, though, that the landlord of The Crown had got his binoculars down from behind the bar.
What had previously been theoretical suddenly felt very real. There was a lot of trepidation (not from Maggie, who yelled: “I’ll be whipping the lot off, you don’t get that many opportunities when you’re my age.”)
Soon they were in a variety of poses – on a combine, on tractors, even with farm animals. They drew the line at posing with a ferret, though. “It’s not fair on the poor ferret,” one lady joked to howls of laughter.
Some found it embarrassing; others were naturals. One or two found it actually quite liberating.
The vicar’s wife happened to pass and later told Mrs Edwards in the post office she’d walked in on sort of Roman orgy. By the time Mrs Edwards had told a few people it had become a fact: a brothel had opened in the village.
“It’s artistic,” the “models” were keen to point out. And if that didn’t defuse any opposition, telling them it was for charity certainly did.
The photographer (or “snapper”, as he liked to call himself) shot them in a variety of poses that were on the whole tasteful, although one or two were a bit near the knuckle (in one case, literally).
And a few months later, there the calendars were. Boxes and boxes of them, piled up in Miss March’s kitchen.
Miss July seemed to be the most popular with the local men. Mrs November soon realised to her disappointment that she wasn’t going to get pinned up in many workshops.
The “models” had became local celebrities, with the media after them. That was fine: Miss February had had a spell working in London in marketing, so she handled that side of the venture.
The local radio station even had them on, all of them crammed into the studio. OK, it wasn’t drive time, but it wasn’t quite the graveyard slot either. They liked the idea of being compared to the Calendar Girls (except the presenter got confused and called them the Cheeky Girls).
And soon the calendars were selling like hot cakes. There was even talk of a reprint, as their chosen charity had benefited so much.
Before long, they were trying to persuade the local men to have a go, cracking lots of jokes about not doing it on a cold day and what props the chaps would need to conceal their modesty. Chainsaws. Bales of straw. Pitchforks. “A kitchen fork would do my husband,” Miss March laughed.
Ed the gamekeeper volunteered straight away for the cover (there again, his nickname at school had been “the tripod”).
Meanwhile, the village’s very own “Calendar Girls” collected lots of money and held a cheque presentation in The Crown with a representative of their chosen charity. Maggie, needless to say, volunteered to take her top off…