A new Calendar Girls creation is hitting the shelves in Ipswich today to help raise money to send a cancer-stricken mum and her three children on a well deserved break.

IPSWICH: A new Calendar Girls creation is hitting the shelves in Ipswich today to help raise money to send a cancer-stricken mum and her three children on a well deserved break.

Friends and colleagues of Bianca Chapman stripped off to shoot the calendar in September using beach balls, Santa hats and other props to preserve their modesty.

Now, Miss Chapman, 28, has laid eyes on the final finished product after friend Gem Richardson dropped the first copies off.

The mum-of-three said: “They are absolutely fantastic, I can't believe it.

“I want to say a massive thanks to Gem, she has worked really hard spending hours and hours, days and days back and forth to the printers and photographers.

“I can't believe they all wanted to do it. It is amazing. It was really good fun, we were all nervous at the start but by the time it came to the December shoot we were whipping our clothes off.

“My kids are so excited at the thought of a holiday - we are so thankful to all the girls.”

The money raised will go towards sending Miss Chapman and her three children, Tia, seven, Joshua, eight, and two-year-old Izaac, to Disneyland Paris.

The rest of the money will be donated to the Woolverstone Wish Foundation at Ipswich Hospital to help fund an extension of the chemotherapy ward.

Mrs Richardson, organiser of the project and a senior area manager at The Body Shop at Home, said they are hoping to sell all 1,500 copies to raise �15,000.

Miss Chapman, of Cherry Blossom Close, has been fighting cancer for the past two years, missing out on taking her three young children on holiday three times because of treatment.

She was first diagnosed with non Hodgkin's lymphoma cancer on February 19, 2007, the same day as her youngest son Izaac was born.

She is currently in Ipswich Hospital undergoing more chemotherapy as she waits for a stem cell transplant.

The calendars will be priced at �10 and are available at The Body Shop. Alternatively, you can purchase a copy by calling Mrs Richardson on 07886 132235.

Are you undertaking an unusual charity appeal? Write to Your Letters, Evening Star, 30 Lower Brook Street, Ipswich, IP4 1AN or e-mail eveningstarletters@eveningstar.co.uk