A GROUP of North East women who bonded over boot camp fitness sessions on a beach have created a fundraising calendar after discovering their lives had all been touched by cancer.

The Fitness with Grace calendar is the brainchild of personal trainer Grace Stilgrove, from Whitley Bay, who hopes it will raise as much as £25,000 for Macmillan Cancer Support.

“The Macmillan nurses were truly wonderful when my mum Brenda was diagnosed with cancer of the gall bladder,” says Grace, 37. “Mum was only 58 and she wasn’t just fit, she was athletic, but sadly she died shortly after her diagnosis in May 2009.”

Brenda’s legacy to her daughter had been a love of exercise and Grace started a personal training company, holding fitness sessions on the beach at Tynemouth and Seaton Sluice.

This year, after discovering other boot camp members had links with cancer, she decided to create the fund raising calendar, which features images of the women in sportswear exercising in the stunning setting of the North East coastline.

“Nearly all the girls have stories to tell,” said Grace, “and they’re not all about being victims of cancer.

Although a couple of our calendar girls have family members with cancer, one woman is a cancer geneticist and another is a registrar oncologist.

“The calendar is not simply a fund raising initiative - it is also a great celebration of women dealing with cancer and trying to beat it.”

  •  The Fitness with Grace 2013 calendar costs £9.99 and is available on-line at fitnesswithgrace.co.uk. It is also be on sale at the Calendar Club retail outlet in Eldon Square, Newcastle.