A GROUP of boaters based in Bradford on Avon have posed nude for a fundraising calendar.

Almost 100 copies of the whimsically titled Wouldn't Touch It With a Barge Pole, were sold before any copies had been printed.

Mo Bennie, 49, of Granny Mo's Café in Frome Road, came up with the idea as a way to raise money for the boaters' crisis fund, which helps boaters after incidents like the one in May this year when a narrowboat was destroyed in a fire.

She said: "Everyone had this sort of tacky image in their mind but it's not like that. It has been absolutely brilliant fun and everyone has been so willing and respectful."

The grandmother-of-two is the calendar's model for March, where she is pictured lying naked on the floor with cakes and crockery surrounding her and a homemade strawberry heart-shaped delicacy preserving her modesty, in a take-off of the pose struck by Mena Suvari in the film American Beauty.

Ms Bennie said: "It's just the quirkiness of it all that I love. I'm so proud of what everyone has achieved. I think it is going to go really far."

The calendars, which were printed by JFDi Printers, in Frome Road, have been on sale since Tuesday and are expected to sell like hot cakes. They cost £6 and are available from Granny Mo's and The Lock Inn pub in Frome Road.

The Soap Dodgers boaters' band front the calendar with a shot taken at Warleigh Weir in Bath. Other images include shots of narrowboat owners on board their homes and the two young assistants at Granny Mo's Café. Photographer and local boater Tony Mills features on the back of the calendar.

Miss Bennie has three children Kevin, 29, Katy Ackroyd, 26 and Sam, 11, who goes to St Laurence School. She said: "Sam is a bit embarrassed. Everyone has been brilliant though and done it for free to help put the whole thing together and I think it will be really big."