Revealed: the new Calender Girls

IF anyone had told Sally Newstead a few months ago that the day would soon come when she would be doing the ironing in her back garden starkers but for a pair of cowboy boots, she'd have laughed in disbelief. And if they had said that her naked photo would form part of a calendar to be gawped over by strangers, she would probably have blushed very pink indeed.

But Sally, 40, and nine other mums with 25 children between them have done just that, producing a Mums Uncovered calendar of domestic chores.

As with their WI forerunners, immortalised in this year's hit movie, Calendar Girls, the mothers, from the kind of Kent village where the most exciting thing to happen is the summer fte, have executed their chores with fewer clothes and a lot more nuance than usual.

The story of the calendar really starts in February 1996, when Sally and her husband, David, 43, were told that their nine-month- old daughter, Shelby, had a rare form of cancer called neuroblastoma.

"In a strange way I almost felt relieved because I'd known that something wasn't right for months," recalls Sally, sitting in her spacious bungalow in Culverstone, a quiet village in north Kent. "I'd been to the doctor over and over again but was told that, as a first- time mother, I was being overanxious. Then they thought it was a chest infection and then TB. At least we knew what was wrong at last."

Shelby, now a bubbly eight-year-old, underwent a fourhour operation at Great Ormond Street Hospital to remove the malignant tumour on her chest.

Sally, who gave up her career in events promotions for BMW to become a fulltime mother, and David, a company director, tried to be strong throughout the operation, but when Shelby came out of the theatre, the trauma was overwhelming: "We looked at this tiny, helpless child and then looked at each other and said, my God, that's our baby.

"She was lying on her tummy with wires everywhere and you could see a huge scar where they'd stitched her back up. I broke down. But in another month the tumour would have reached her spine and that would have been it. We've been very lucky."

Shelby was given the all-clear five years later. But there have been setbacks, because the tumour left her with a permanently weak chest. When she collapsed with pneumonia at school in September this year, it led to the idea of doing a calendar to raise money for cancer charities.

It was fellow mum Adele Davis, 31, a housewife from nearby West Kingsdown, who had witnessed Shelby's collapse at school, who suggested it. Her uncle had also recently died from lung cancer at the age of 42.

"We took my aunt to see the film Calendar Girls to cheer her up," Adele explains. "I realised that a calendar would be a wonderful way to raise money to help others with cancer." Adele, along with her sister, Sonja Cantwell, 29, and their friend Amanda Short, 39, approached Sally with the idea. "I thought it was great," says Sally, who now has two other children, Ty, five, and Tianey, four.

They set about recruiting the other models. The response was enthusiastic: at first, 18 other mums said yes. Unfortunately, half had to pull out because of strong opposition from their husbands. "A friend who was forced to drop out told me that in 16 years of marriage she had never realised her husband was such a prude.

"Some of the men just didn't like the idea of their wives stripping off for public viewing.

That surprised me," says Sally, "because the bottom line is that we're mums and have our children to think of, so we wouldn't have gone too far.

"Anyway, local reaction has been fantastic. The teachers at Shelby's school have asked for calendars. And a teacher at my youngest child's nursery said the dustmen had asked for one."

Eventually the calendar was shot using 10 women, all mums aged between 26 and 48. They found a local photographer, Teresa Hartley, who did the four-day shoot in Sally's house and garden in October for free.

They had to wait until David had left for work because Sally had wanted to keep it a secret.

"Amazingly he knew nothing, no one whispered a word; the first he knew about it was when I showed him the calendar. He was gobsmacked! Once he picked his chin up from the floor, he loved it."

If any of the neighbours had dared to peep over the hedge during those four days, they might have thought the village mums had been at the sherry.

There was Sally, bending nude over an ironing board in the garden; another mum naked on the cross-trainer. In the kitchen, more were sitting drinking tea.

And one was hiding naked in the foliage outside.

Sally, who is slim and attractive with close-cropped blonde hair and smiling eyes (Miss June and August), admits to a few anxious moments: "Someone came up next door's drive while I was ironing topless and Amanda was wandering about in just her shoes having a quick cigarette. I looked round and said, 'Oh God!' - and that's when the shot was taken."

Sonja (Miss January and June) also had a close shave: "I was using the cross-trainer naked when I suddenly realised I was in full view of passing traffic!"

Sally admits she felt self-conscious at first, "but then Amanda stripped off. She said, 'Come on girls, we've all got big bits, small bits and saggy bits.' Once we'd started we didn't even need the champagne I'd opened for Dutch courage." The women say they didn't prepare, but you can't help wondering if the odd one slapped on a bit of fake tan and nail polish.

Amanda (Miss February and June) particularly enjoyed herself: "I look fat at the kitchen table, wearing nothing but a handbag, but you know what? I don't care."

At least she was a willing recruit. Shirley Pearce, 44, a housewife and mother of two from West Kingsdown (Miss March), was there to help the photographer but ended up being drafted in at the last moment: "A mum dropped out and they turned to me. I think I could have shown more because people are always saying I've got nice legs."

Sally loves the calendar, but hates her picture. "I'm horrible in it," she grimaces. "I took one look and thought, 'I'm going to have a boob job, and I need to do something about my hair', but then my husband said he's quite glad I don't look like a Page Three model. He loves me as I am."

But what does Shelby think of it all? "She giggled at first but now she tells everyone and says, 'That's my mum!'" Have they been fighting off offers from Hollywood studios eager to film their story? "Who would I choose to play my part?

Me," she says.

Not to be outdone, the husbands have promised to do their own calendar next year.

* Mums Uncovered is 6.99.

Call 01732 823250 or visit www.mumsuncovered.co.uk.

Proceeds go to Friends of Shelby Newstead, which has raised more than 30,000 for hospital equipment and cancer charities, including Cancer Research UK.

(c)2003. Associated Newspapers Ltd.. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights Reserved.