A TYNEMOUTH fitness group has created a fundraising calendar after realising their lives had all been touched by cancer.

All of the profits raised by the Fitness with Grace calendar, which features pictures of the women running and exercising on North East beaches, will go to Macmillan Cancer Support.

The calendar is the brainchild of personal trainer Grace Stilgrove, 37, from Whitley Bay, who lost her mother Brenda to cancer of the gall bladder three years ago.

“The Macmillan nurses were truly wonderful when my mum was diagnosed with cancer,” Grace said.

“If it hasn’t already affected your life, the likelihood is that at some point in the future it will.

“When those Macmillan nurses come, they are the most important people in your life,” she said.

She hopes the calendar with raise up to £20,000 for the charity. And despite the widespread success of nude calendars since the film Calendar Girls, Grace said there was no question of the ladies in her fitness group stripping off.

“Why should you have to take your top off for cancer?” she said.

““It’s been done.”