After going through the toughest time, these women found a way to give back
Setting out their picnic, a group of women adjust their sun-hats, then carefully position themselves among the long blades of grass.
‘Move that champagne bottle just a bit lower so we can’t see everything,’ says photographer, Sally Smart.
Everyone chuckles and then…c_lick_.
Sally, 54, of Denbighshire, can usually be found photographing brides and grooms, but today, she’s taking on a different challenge, shooting 18 breast cancer survivors for a charity calendar.
And the catch? They’re all completely naked.
It all began when Sally herself was diagnosed with breast cancer.
‘I’d been watching Lorraine Kelly talk about how important it is to check your boobs regularly,’ Sally explains. ‘So I checked mine, never imagining I’d actually find a lump.’
Sally had only recently lost her mum to cancer, and was all too aware how brutal treatment could be, and that it wasn’t always successful.
‘Chemo really knocked me for six,’ Sally says. ‘And when I lost my hair, I cried every single day. All I could think about was Mum, and how my two teenage children would cope if they lost me.
‘But then I decided to put my big girl pants on and laugh about it.’
Turning to social media, Sally donned crazy wigs and silly hats to inspire others going through a similar journey.
She also set up a support group for patients at the North Wales Cancer Centre at Glan Clwyd Hospital.
‘Being able to talk to other women like me was a lifeline,’ she says. ‘We laughed and cried together.’
After a mastectomy, Sally was given the all-clear, and immediately she began to think about how to give back.
First, she and others from the support group put on a coffee morning to raise money to replace a broken chair in the hospital.
That sparked more events, including a bingo night and a sponsored walk, which saw Sally’s partner, Iwan, 55, climb Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania.
Those events raised over £10,000.
But the group, already calling themselves Breast Friends, wanted to raise more.
And then somebody suggested a naked calendar.
‘I remember someone cheering, “Let’s get our clothes off!”’ Sally laughs. ‘I thought they were joking!’
But they weren’t — and Sally recruited 18 friends to strip off for the shoot.
Armed with a host of props from saddles to saxophones to preserve their modesty, they got to work.
Although some of the models were nervous at first, others couldn’t wait to whip their kit off.
‘Everyone had fun shooting the picnic scene,’ Sally says. ‘We shot it in my field. Despite the spiky grass and sheep food strewn about, the ladies walked away with huge grins on their faces.’
But not every shoot went smoothly.
For the stable photoshoot, one of the ladies, Claire, slipped into a pair of borrowed riding boots — and couldn’t get them off.
‘Everyone had a go at heaving them from my legs,’ she laughs. ‘In the end, the local vet had to give us some lubricant to prise them off.’
The Breast Friends calendar has now made over £20,000 for the North Wales Cancer Appeal — and it did something else besides.
‘Going through treatment, you have this black cloud hanging over you,’ Sally says. ‘Doing the calendar boosted everyone’s self-confidence and made them feel good about themselves. I couldn’t have asked for more than that.’
*To buy a calendar, visit justgiving.com and search for ‘Sally Smart + Breast Friends’
• Photos - Blue Bug Photography