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Shepherdswell WI members in Calendar Girls photos for Breast Cancer Care

A total 21 WI members have become Calendar Girls.

The women have produced a 2019 calender in the style of the hit film with Helen Mirren.

Two to four members of Shepherdswell WI appear in month-by-month photographs.

The Shepherdswell Calendar Girls. Picture courtesy of Shepherdswell WI
The Shepherdswell Calendar Girls. Picture courtesy of Shepherdswell WI

The group, aged from their 30s to 70s, follow the trend of being nude but tastefully covered up, for example with aprons or barrows of flowers.

Shepherdswell WI president Kate Leech said: "The models are covered up with objects associated with what we often do, such as, baking flower arranging and gardening.

"We have 50 members and 21 volunteered who posed in various locations in Shepherdswell.

"We have initially printed 100 copies and if the calendar is successful we will print more."

The group has already released the front cover picture showing 16 members.

The calendar will be on sale from next Monday from village businesses such as the East Kent Railway station and Mode Hair and Beauty.

It is to raise money for Breast Cancer Care and there is a target figure or £2,000.

The venture was started after a close friend of vice-president Debbie Wilkinson, Julie Hall, died from the disease in January aged just 46.

The trend of WI members appearing in these forms of calendar began in 1999 with a group of Yorkshire women.

It happened after the husband of one was struck with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and died aged 54.

That group's first such calendar, for 2000, was a runaway success that they have produced more over the years, to date raising more than £3 million for the charity Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research.

Their story was made into a film in 2003, Calendar Girls, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.

For more information on the Shepherdswell WI calendar visit the website shepherdswellwi.btck.co.uk

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