The Time Vault of Ridiculous News

LONDON (AFP) - A 101-year-old British pensioner has posed topless for a nude calendar to raise money for a local football team, a report said Wednesday.

Nora Hardwick will be Miss November in the calendar, aimed at raising money for her children's team Ancaster Athletic in her village in Lincolnshire, eastern England.

Nora, who likes a tipple at her local pub The Ermine Way -- where the photo-shoot took place -- said she was slightly nervous when stripping off for the camera, albeit draped in a tasteful pink scarf.

"I am always game for anything, especially if it's for charity," she said, according to the Lincolnshire Echo. "And I did enjoy it, though I don't suppose I will do it again."

Pub landlady Donna Moodie, 37, added: "I thought if Nora would do it, then everyone would. She's amazing."

Nora was not alone in getting her kit off. Local councillor Sandy Ford-Pain, whose nine-year-old used to play for the team and husband Jonathan still coaches the youngsters, said they hoped to sell 400 calendars.

"It's a great way of raising money, it's a laugh and it's a way of getting Ancaster on the map," said the 35-year-old, who is Miss December according to a report on the paper's website at www.lincolnshireecho.co.uk.

The calendar was intended as a low-key local event -- although since news of the event spread, media enquiries have come in from as far afield as Brazil and New Zealand.

Ford-Pain added that locals had raised 1,000 pounds last year when men in the village posed nude in a similar stunt.

The initiative echoes a calendar put together by the Rylstone and District Women's Institute in North Yorkshire, the story of which was turned into a hit film in 2003. Called "Calendar Girls", the firm starred Helen Mirren and Julie Walters.