TEMPERATURES in Southwold are set to soar this summer – the town's netball team has decided to strip off for a calendar to raise £15,000 for a new pitch and Cancer Research.

TEMPERATURES in Southwold are set to soar this summer – the town's netball team has decided to strip off for a calendar to raise £15,000 for a new pitch and Cancer Research.

Middle class women peeling off for charity was previously the preserve of the Women's Institute, as made famous by the ladies of the Rystone and District WI.

Their story has been turned into the movie Calendar Girls starring Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie and Annette Crosbie.

Currently rooted to the bottom of their netball league, members of the 16-squad Southwold team hope the funds will help them turn Klondike Park into a practice and home court after earlier winning planning permission to put up floodlights there.

Yesterday, some of the team took part in the first of a set of shoots at well-known landmarks in the town including Gun Hill, the pier and the beach huts.

Helen Collis, captain of one of the two sides run by the club, said classic photographs from the past inspired some of the pictures.

The 13 images, one for each month and a front cover, include an east coast take on Marilyn Monroe in the Seven Year Itch, Christine Keeler and the famous scandal shot, and the shadowy girls seen at the start of James Bond.

Bunny girls on the common, a mock up of the American Beauty bath of roses scene and a picture using one club member's Harley Davidson was also planned.

But she admitted she was feeling a bit nervous about the whole thing.

"It will raise a few eyebrows but if it is good enough for the WI then it's good enough for us," she said. "We have never done something like this before. We are just normal stay at home mums, although some of us work. It's not something we do every day."

The team is hoping to sell 2500 calendars and already one potential customer, a stockbroker in London, has placed a reserve of order of £50 each for 10.

The 34-year-old's husband Barry Collis, who trains the team and has also been roped in to take part, said the photo shoot could be good for morale.

"It's a good team building exercise," he said. "I am going to have a strategically placed netball in front of me with a group of ladies behind trying to keep a straight face. I have been trying to cut out the fatty stuff and doing the odd press-up!"