The naked calendar that ripped up the rulebook

The Lincoln Women's Action Group created a naked men's calendar in the 1970s

In 1977, calendars of topless women were plastered everywhere - in car garages, pubs and even staff rooms.

Fed up with seeing them, a group of women in Lincoln decided to challenge the norm and create their own version - exclusively featuring men.

After the "for women only" calendar was met with rejection by a local printer, the women protested with placards in the city centre, which led to media coverage and, finally, a willing printer in Birmingham.

The group charged £1 per copy, which fully sold out and led to another print run.

Emma, who was a member of the group, said: "There was a lot of women suffering violence, and there was pornography, and we wanted to challenge it."

A protest with placards was held in Lincoln city centre when the calendar was rejected by a local printer

Steve Edwards stepped in to model for the calendar after he was approached by the group in his record shop that he ran at the time.

"They explained that they were doing a calendar of men sort of, you know, scantily clad... and I said, 'I'm not doing that'."

Mr Edwards said the women eventually managed to persuade him to do it and that during the photoshoot, he was asked to take his shirt off and agreed to have a photo taken naked from behind.

Once the photoshoot was finished, he thought to himself "how am I going to tell my girlfriend what I've just done?"

Paul Wetherby said he was the only one who "took all his kit off" for the calendar

One of the men who posed for the calendar was Paul Wetherby, otherwise known as Sid, who had just moved to Lincoln for work and was in his mid-20s at the time.

He said he was "hugely enthusiastic about being part of stuff" and was asked by the women's group whether he would "contemplate being in a nude calendar" soon after he arrived.

Mr Wetherby said he was given a top hat and recalled being asked to "relax" and "strike a pose".

"They wanted me to be a naked Victorian gentleman," he said.

Sarah Colborne, an archivist at the University of Nottingham, looks after the feminist archive where the calendar is stored.

She said when the story was picked up by local press it led to more coverage, including in The Guardian.

"It was also picked up by newspapers around the world, South Africa, Sweden, I think," she said.

"Any magazine you opened at the time, you'd see naked women.

"I don't know whether the printers even saw the proofs of the calendar or the photographs before turning it down, but it was a flat no from the printers."

An extract from a letter by one of the Lincoln printers who refused to print the calendar at the time said that they "don't feel the firm can handle material of this nature".

Sarah Colborne, from the University of Nottingham, said the story went worldwide

The coverage led to an outpouring of letters from people, both men and women, from around the world asking to buy a copy of the calendar.

One customer returned the calendar with a note that said: "I'm returning this, it's not what I expected. They're all too ugly!"

Later, the group did another photoshoot of nude men and produced postcards to raise money for charity.

Emma added: "It was light-hearted in the way it was presented, but it certainly wasn't in why we did it, because we were doing it to challenge a prevailing norm."

The story has been told as part of the BBC Hidden Lincolnshire podcast series.

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