Gardeners bare all for charity calendar shoot

YOU’VE heard of the naked chef — now meet the naked gardeners.

For months, they’ve been baring their souls to the nation while growing their own food.

But the stars of Corrigan’s City Farm TV series have bared all for charity.

Some 12 of the programme’s 23 volunteers working on two Cork city allotments stripped off at the weekend for a naked calendar shoot to help children with leukaemia.

The allotment volunteers were inspired by a group of Yorkshire women who produced a nude calendar to raise money for leukaemia research. Their efforts inspired the hit comedy movie, Calendar Girls, in 2003, starring Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.

And so, braving bracing October winds, the grow-your-own volunteers stripped off to work naked in the Blackpool allotment’s vegetable patches.

Certain vegetables were harvested to cover some body parts. Andy King and Mervin Gilchrist used a strategically positioned bale of hay and a watering can to maintain their modesty.

Chef Richard Corrigan praised the participants for their bravery.

“They are great to do this calendar and are certainly a lot braver than me. I don’t think anyone wants to see me without my clothes on,” he said.

RTÉ cameras captured the Blackpool calendar shoot and scenes will be screened during the Corrigan’s City Farm series which is broadcast on Wednesday nights.

The final images will be included in a charity calendar which will be on sale in time for Christmas with all proceeds going towards the Children’s Leukaemia Association Office based at Cork’s Mercy University Hospital.

The association works with the families of children from all over Munster who have been diagnosed with leukaemia and who are treated at MUH’s Children’s Leukaemia Unit.

The association provides a range of supports including home-from-home holistic accommodation for families who have to travel long distances while their child is being treated in the hospital, it funds additional nursing staff at critical periods during the child’s illness, and it funds research.

It is hoped that money raised will help fund an in-hospital tutor to work with the children while they are in hospital for treatment.