The Rylstone WI women are poised to smash through the £1 million mark for leukaemia research - after setting out to make just £5,000.

More than 200,000 copies of the second calendar featuring movie actresses Helen Mirren and Julie Walters were sold in the run-up to Christmas - outselling the original which sold 88,000 in the UK.

Stunned bosses at Penguin said: "It has been very popular indeed."

Selling at £9.99 each, the exact amount for research has not been revealed but it is a higher percentage than normal royalties.

Before Christmas the women's total was hovering around the £900,000 mark.

One of the original Rylstone women, Tricia Stewart, who was flying to Barcelona yesterday for a film premiere in Spain, said: "Five years ago when we started we originally thought £5,000 was a lot.

"We produced 1,000 calendars for £5 each and would have been happy to have sold them all. That seemed an enormous amount of money.

"It is difficult to be precise because royalties come in only every quarter but this calendar should take us past the £1 million mark. It should be any time now." Tricia, 53, of Cracoe, and fellow WI member Angela Baker, 55, from Linton, were meeting opera star and leukaemia survivor Jose Carreras at the Spanish movie premiere to collect a cheque from him.

More money will also be raised when the movie comes out on video and DVD.

Tricia added: "It has been part of our lives now for the past five years. Eventually I am sure we will be forgotten but the calendar will live on. It has been fantastic to be involved."

The original calendar was in memory of Angela's husband John, a Yorkshire Dales National Park officer, who died from leukaemia aged 53, in 1996.

It sold 88,000 copies in the UK, raising £330,000 for research and a staggering £100,000 in the first three weeks on sale in the US.

The photos in the second calendar were taken by the photographer who took the portraits for the first trail-blazing calendar, Terry Logan.

The film, Calendar Girls, told how the members of the WI near Skipton made the nude calendar with the use of strategically-placed household items to conceal themselves.

Actresses Helen Mirren, Julie Walters, Celia Imrie and Annette Crosbie made it a huge success after a launch at the Cannes film festival.