- Chris: A while ago I asked John Clarke to give us a talk here at Knapely WI. Annie asked me to read it to you here tonight, and this is what he wrote: "The flowers of Yorkshire are like the women of Yorkshire. Every stage of their growth has its own beauty, but the last phase is always the most glorious. Then very quickly they all go to seed."
- [laughter]
- Chris: "Which makes it ironic my favourite flower isn't even indigenous to the British Isles, let alone Yorkshire. I don't think there's anything on this planet that more trumpets life that the sunflower. For me that's because of the reason behind its name. Not because it looks like the sun but because it follows the sun. During the course of the day, the head tracks the journey of the sun across the sky. A satellite dish for sunshine. Wherever light is, no matter how weak, these flowers will find it. And that's such an admirable thing. And such a lesson in life."
- [seeking approval for the calendar at the National WI Conference]
- Chris: I'm about to commit heresy. Look, I hate plum jam.
- [laughter]
- Chris: I only joined the WI to make my mother happy. I do, I hate plum jam. I'm crap at cakes, I can't make sponge. In fact, seeing as it's unlikely that George Clooney would actually come to Skipton to do a talk on what it was like to be in "ER", there seems very little reason for me to actually stay in the WI. Except suddenly... suddenly I want to raise money in memory of a man I loved, and to do that I'm prepared to take me clothes off for a WI calendar, and if you can't give us ten minutes of your time, Madam Chairman, well then, frankly, guys, I'm going to do it without council approval. Because there are some things that are more important than council approval. And if it means that we get closer to killing off this shitty, cheating, sly, conniving bloody disease that cancer is, oh God, I tell you, I'd run round Skipton market naked, smeared in plum jam, wearing nothing but a knitted tea cosy on me head and singing "Jerusalem".
- [laughter]
- Annie: You baked that?
- Chris: I'm not a total dead loss as a woman. I can't knit or make plum jam but I can bake a bloody Victoria sponge.
- Annie: Ok, thank you.
- Chris: Course, I didn't actually bake this one - I got it at Marks and Spencer - but the point is...
- Annie: You can't enter a cake you bought in a shop!
- Chris: Get off! It doesn't matter where it comes from, does it? This is about putting up a united front against Highgyll. This isn't bakery. It's Zulu.
- End title card: To date, the Calendar Girls have raised over £578,000. This has paid for a new leukaemia unit at the local hospital. And a sofa.
- Ruth: Well, I think it's a great idea.
- Cora: You weren't concentrating, were you Ruth?
- Ruth: I was. We're going to raise money to buy a sofa for the hospital in John's name.
- Celia: By posing for a nude calendar!
- Ruth: Oh no!
- Chris: Oh sit down. I'm not asking you to straddle an 'Arley Davidson.
- Celia: It's still a bit of a leap from Burnsall church, love.
- Chris: That's the 'ole point. It's an alternative calendar, it's...
- Annie: It's what John suggested.
- Chris: Did he?
- Annie: The last stage of the flower is the most glorious. So what this calendar would be saying is "actually, yes John, we agree".
- Ruth: With respect, I didn't hear him use the phrase "whip your bras off"
- Marie: The next item on the agenda is the calendar. Last year we had views of local bridges, so this year I thought we could go for the twelve most beautiful views of...
- Chris: [mutters] ... George Clooney
- Marie: ...the churches of Wharfedale.
- Chris: [mutters] Eleven fully-clothed and a little "lift the flap" for December.
- Chris: And seeing Marie's raised the issue, we're a good few months short.
- Marie: Is that not because all this has the air of another of Chris's great ideas? Like the vodka tasting night?
- Chris: No, because I'm going to make sure this one turns out ok Marie, because it's for John. It's inspired by John and it's for John and it's because of John and no matter what you might think of the idea Marie, you're looking at January.
- [matter-of-factly, to Jessie, over breakfast]
- Richard: You're nude in The Telegraph, dear. Can you pass the bacon?
- Eddie Reynoldson: You are looking lovely...
- Ruth: Which one of us are you talking to, Eddie? The one who makes a tart of herself by taking her clothes off or me?
- Bookshop Owner: The WI calendar? No love.
- Chris: But I definitely sent you some. See? Minstergate Bookshop, 50.
- Bookshop Owner: I know. And I got 'em. I put 'em out at nine o'clock and by ten past nine, we'd sold out.
- Marie: I do know how you must be feeling.
- Annie: Do you? Oh dear.
- Marie: Are you sure John would have approved?
- Annie: You said yourself, you didn't know him.
- Marie: I know he was a decent man...
- Annie: If your concern is for the reputation of Knapely WI...
- Marie: It's not.
- Annie: I think it is. The WI is about doing good. And what does more good? Knowing slightly more about broccoli one week than we did the last or providing some comfort for someone in the worst hours of their life because that's what it's like sweetheart. And no. I don't think you do know how I feel.
- [talking to Chris about her dead husband, John]
- Annie: I'd rob every penny from this calendar if it would buy me just one more hour with him.
- Marie: Victoria Sponge. Annie's on Victoria sponge.
- [Marie leaves. Chris dives under the table and brings out a cake tin]
- Ruth: What's that?
- Chris: Well, Annie won't have had time running Yul Brynner in and out of Skipton General, so ta da!
- Annie: Sorry I'm late. It just took a bit longer than... Oh my God, the cake!
- Chris: Told you.
- Cora: I'm surprised they printed it.
- Jessie: It's probably all over the internet by now.
- Annie: By the sound of it, most people have seen it already.
- Chris: Lots of people have photos taken with their tops off on holiday in Ibiza don't they?
- Ruth: It probably just came as a slight shock Chris, what with the previous fifteen photos being of flower arrangements.
- Gaz: It's a difficult age. About now, women go through a difficult age. They become all irrational and odd and difficult to predict.
- Jem Harper: How do you know?
- Gaz: Me dad told me.
- Brenda Mooney: We don't do nudity. But we do do charity. I assume that this is a local fundraiser and you're not going to be making a big hoo-ha out of it?
- Chris: Yes.
- Brenda Mooney: Then it is a branch matter, and I can leave any decision in the hands of your branch president.
- [leaves]
- Marie: [pauses] Oh sod it go on then.
- Eddie Reynoldson: They're not a scintillating lot, carpet dealers. They only get excited about bonded underlay.
- Holiday Speaker: Our round the world cruise started in Skipton. When we booked the tickets. That's them. They were a special offer and it was essential, my wife told me, to book them before the 25th of the month...
- Student Photographer: The blood represents the spread of globalisation and the sheep's skull represents the death of democracy.
- Chris: And the carrot?
- Student Photographer: The carrot is capitalism.
- Chris: I'm not a total dead loss as a woman, I may not be able to knit or make plum jam but I can bake a bloody Victoria sponge... 'course I didn't bake this one, I got it at Marks and Spencer.