West Lothian women become calendar pin-ups for charity

Nov 12 2009 by Marjorie Kerr, West Lothian Courier

A GROUP of women have made a date to become pin-ups in a bid to raise cash for charity.

Fifteen women, lead by Val Higgins from Livingston, are putting together a calendar of photos to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support.

The idea was the brainchild of Val and her friend and hairdresser, Karen Paterson.

Val (37) of Huron Avenue, Howden, explained the women wanted to do something to help a cause which was important to them all.

She said: “I was diagnosed with bowel cancer seven years ago and I know that some of the other women have lost people to cancer.

“Everyone seems to be feeling a bit down at the moment and Karen and I were talking about what we could do to cheer ourselves and our friends up, and we came up with the idea of the calendar, which also has the bonus of raising money for charity.

“Since I’m a photographer I am doing the pictures and Karen is doing the hair styling.”

The Girl-Licious calendar will feature tastefully risque pictures of the women, in the style of the WRI ladies made famous in the film “Calendar Girls”.

To mark the beginning of their venture, the women have organised a special launch night for the calendar at Uphall Golf Club on December 3 at 7pm.

And the women are confident the 300 calendars they have ordered from the printers will be good sellers.

Val said: “There are 15 of us involved in the calendar and we come from West Lothian, Glasgow, Falkirk and Ireland and we range in age from 18 to 55.

“Each of us are going to have calendars to sell and we’re quite confident that they’ll be good sellers because a lot of people are saying they want one of them already.”

Each page of the calendar is sponsored by a business, which is helping towards the printing costs and the women hope they will collect around £1000 to present to Macmillan .

Val passed on her thanks to everyone who has been helping with the calendars’ production.

She said: “I’m really grateful to all the ladies who have taken part, all the sponsors – Uphall Golf Club, Kris Commercials Glasgow, J. McVicar Printers Glasgow, Sharon McKeirnan and Gordon Lochrane – for all their help.

“This is something that none of us ever thought we would do, but we’re all enjoying it and it’s in a very good cause.”

For more information, or to buy the calendar, go to girl-licious@hotmail.co.uk where the calendar is on sale priced £5 plus £1.50 postage and packing.