4th January 2017. Portland anglers have once again bared all for a charity calendar in aid NCI Portland Bill. Keen fisherman and friends of the Portland Angling Club swapped their fishing nets for fishnets in a series of risqué photographs to raise money for the station. The calendar follows on from the 2014 calendar, which saw the anglers strip down to raise £3,500 for the National Coastwatch Institution.  

Maurice Pickford, a builder from Portland, organised the aptly named ‘50 names of fishnets’ wall calendar. He said: "We still have a lot to sell and if we could sell another 250 this year then I would be really chuffed. It was quite easy to get people involved, quite a lot of people volunteered straight away. This year we have included friends of the club, nobody really wants to see the anglers without their clothes on again."

The calendar shows the fisherman and friends in array of brightly coloured stockings artfully arranged in festive and coastal scenes.

Maurice said: "We decided to raise money for Coastwatch because we fish and we are always out on boats so it’s a little bit of security around us. We all know people who have lost their lives around here and maybe we can help put a stop to it. We know there have been cut backs with the helicopter on Portland and things so hopefully we can help make a small difference."

Geoff Peters, Station manager at Portland Bill, said: "Every bit of money that we get we have to get ourselves, except when people come in and do things for us like this calendar. We are a working charity which means that every day we need to find nine people to man the watch station meaning we don’t have the time to go out there and fundraise ourselves. For someone to come along and say we are doing it for you is a total surprise, we knew nothing about this calendar."

 Photograph courtesy of the Dorset Echo