“It was so cold! We could see the sunrise over Castle Hill at half seven in the morning!” Quite a few of the early risers among Cambridge students will have had cause to utter these words last month as freezing temperatures gripped the UK. But none with such sincerity as Peter Dudfield whose mission to grin and bare all this new year in aid of the British Red Cross’s International Disaster Fund has led to a cheeky calendar he hopes will be the first step in his ambitious plans for charity fundraising. 

Dudfield, a second-year PhD student at Pembroke and a keen cyclist, is also planning a round-the-world cycle which he will complete next year in the hopes of raising £10,000 for the charity. He said: “I’ll be heading east. India, North America, New Zealand, places like that.” A few local events are planned to kick-start his world tour, including a London to Cambridge cycle.

When asked how the idea for a naked calendar had come about, Dudfield, said: “I always wanted to make a difference. The Red Cross are always there, first on the scene and ready to help, like for example with the Boxing Day Tsunami. A calendar like this was something that would get people talking and eventually I decided ‘Just do it!’”.

The photos were taken by a friend at various sites across Cambridge, with coffee cups, hymn sheets and bicycles taking care of the censorship. “It got strangely usual as it went along”, Dudfield told Varsity, recalling a photo shoot in the small hours at Pembroke. “Someone appeared, saw it and then sort of scampered away quite quickly.”

The result is a tongue-in-cheek calendar that Dudfield hopes will sell well: “There has been a lot of interest, mainly from female friends, but so far 20 per cent of them have already been sold. I do hope it sells well, maybe there’ll be a part two if people like it!”

The idea of naked calendars as charity fundraisers is not new to the Cambridge consciousness. 2009 saw veterinary students from the University strip off for a charity calendar entitled “Vets Up Front.”

Anyone wishing to order a calendar or donate to Peter’s cause may do so via the Peter Pedals Facebook page, the website www.peterpedals.co.uk or by emailing peterpedals2013@hotmail.com