A CALENDAR picturing women who stripped for a charity, has taken the United States by storm.

In just three weeks of the launch of the American version of the Rylstone and District WI Calendar, it has sold 100,000 copies.

Miss October, 51 year-old Tricia Stewart, of Cracoe, said: "It's been an amazing success. We are all so thrilled."

The American version - covering 19 months from June 2000 to December 2001 - is due to go on sale in the UK in about a week's time and will cost £8.95.

Tricia has just returned from a promotional tour of the States with fellow Calendar girls, Beryl Bamforth, 67, Miss January, Lynda Logan, 58, Miss July, and Angela Baker, 54, Miss February.

"We had a fantastic nine days. We were three days in New York, and then travelled on to Los Angeles, Santa Cruz, San Jose and San Francisco.

"In the Barnes and Noble store in New York, we met Michael Palin, and then we came across him later on at a radio station and at the Los Angeles celebration of books event.

"One of the great events was at the Roosevelt Hotel in New York where they organised a WI style high tea in which we dressed in frocks, pearls and hats.

"We got such a positive reception from everybody."

The American calendar is called The Ladies of Rylstone and all royalties from the sale go to leukaemia research.

Inspiration for the calendar was Angela's husband John, a Yorkshire Dales National Park officer, who died of leukaemia aged 53 in 1998.

o The Calendar Girls will officially open the Manorlands garden party on July 9 at 1.30pm.

The annual extravaganza in the grounds of the Sue Ryder hospice at Oxenhope will feature stalls and games.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.