Catching The Rain

Charity calendars

Here’s a quick Christmas present suggestion (from the king of festive shopping - not!). Charity calendars are not exactly new, after all the WI having been baring all for years and I now see that even a bunch of British female athletes have jumped on the bandwaggon with their own supposedly saucy version. But here’s something a bit different; something with real appeal and a unique, special touch.

I’m talking about the Scilly’s Future 2006 Calendar, being sold in aid of the St Mary’s playgroup.

For those who may not know, the Isles of Scilly is the name given to a small group of islands about 25 miles off Lands End, itself the south-west tip of mainland Britain. I was there for a couple of days in October, mainly visiting the main island of St Mary’s and the famous gardens in Tresco.

Anyway, the local playgroup came upon the idea of dressing up the kids in the ‘uniforms’ of their parents and photographing them at their place of work. So we find ourselves looking at tiny firemen, lifeboatmen, fishermen, artists, gardeners, and even the most wonderful 3- or 4-year-old land steward, complete with tweed jacket.

There’s only one catch to writing about all this, and that is that I can’t point you to a site where you can buy the calendar or even just see some of the pictures. Not as far as I know, anyway. I’ve even tried searching eBay. So now I’ll email the person listed as the designer for it and see if I can find out more, or at least get permission to reproduce the cover here to give you a flavour of what it’s all about. It’s far too good to be kept to just those who live on or have visited those lovely islands.

Update 1 December: I’ve just heard back from Jenny Nightingale, the designer of the calendar (it turns out she is an illustrator by trade, and a very talented one too) , and Francis Hosken, who took a lot of the pictures. There are only about a hundred calendars left, and you can get one for £8.50 inc p&p (UK). See Francis’s site at www.scillywebcam.com/calendar.htm for full details.

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