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TRICIA STEWART |
| In February 1998, Tricia's friend John Baker was diagnosed with non Hodgkins Lymphoma - he died in July of the same year. Craco is a small village in the Yorkshire Dales & all were shocked by John's death & wanted to do something positive to raise money for research into blood related cancers. |
| John's wife Angela is a member of the Rylstone & District WI. For a long time the ladies shared a joke of making an 'alternative' WI calendar. The traditional WI calendar features scenes of hills, village greens & postboxes. Tricia's idea was to do a calendar featuring crafts of the WI but the girls would be nude! They laughed about it for ages but it was John's death that made them determined to do it. |
| On a dusky evening in September 1998, the WI ladies arrived at Lynda & Terry Logan's house to take the photographs & the rest is history. |
| They thought they could sell a thousand calendars & make £5000 for the Leukaemia Research Fund & would have been very happy with that. In reality they've raised over £650,000 for LRF, sold more than 3,000,000 calendars & toured America twice. |
| On 2nd September 2003, they were at the Odeon Leicester Square for the premiere of the Calendar Girls - a movie based on their story & featuring the cream of British actresses including Helen Mirren & Julie Walters. |
| Tricia always felt that the WI ladies had one more calendar in them but it had to be just right. What could be better, the original six girls & the six actresses who starred in the film! |
| Tricia had a great deal of involvement in the promotion of the movie as the PR people referred to the WI as the Real Women & the interest is in their true story & involvement with the massive business of making a major movie. |
| The royalties from the movie go directly to LRF as do the royalties from the 2004 calendar. |
| Over the four years since the WI ladies launched their original 2000 calendar Tricia has spoken to many varied audiences. In 2000, she toured America twice promoting the US version of the calendar appearing on the Jay Leno & Rosie O'Donnell shows. |
| She was also nominated by Maureen Lipman for the Woman of the Year luncheon in 1999, again in 2000 & again in 2003. Tricia was also invited by the Leukaemia & Lymphoma Society of America to speak to their 2000 participants in the Dublin Marathon. |
| Other venues include the Oldies lunch at Simpsons in the Strand alongside John Sergeant; at Bertrams in the presence of many authors including Sandi Toksvig who complimented her by saying she was a natural (praise indeed!) & to Healthcare professionals for the Kings Fund. In October 2003, Tricia was a keynote speaker at the Rotary International District 1240 Conference in Bath. Mo Mowlam was another of the keynote speakers. |
| John had taken the WI ladies on an amazing journey, albeit not without challenges, as there were a few of those. For Tricia, her life totally changed. Her name & number went out with the press releases on 9th April 1999 & she has been on a telephone ever since! "It was like running a business. I loved every minute as the calendar sold more & the total went up, it was thrilling. We have met amazing people & have grown so much. Before the calendar I couldn't give the vote of thanks at our own WI meeting, now I can speak anywhere to anyone!" |
For more information on Tricia Stewart, Contact Arena. Tel: 0113-239-2222 |