ORGANISERS of a controversial fund-raising calendar were shocked when the charity receiving the proceeds refused to publicly accept the cheque.

Calendar organisers, Jennifer Purcell and Dianne Hodkinson, turned up at the Frank Street Old Aged Pensioners' Centre, in Barnoldswick earlier this week to formally hand over the £2,700.

But they were forced to leave it on a table and walk out after receiving a "frosty" reception from the chairman and secretary of the club, Connie Pickles and Mary Town.

Jennifer and Dianne battled to publish the calendar, featuring Sita recycling plant workers from Barnoldswick, Padiham, Great Harwood and Burnley, after Lancashire County Council refused to back the venture to protect its "name and reputation."

They said that after collecting all the money they wanted to surprise the old folk who use the club with the final cheque and turned up unannounced on the centre's bingo night on Tuesday.

Jennifer said: "We knew it was a night when there would be a lot of people there and we thought we would turn up and surprise them.

"But when we got there the first thing someone said to us was 'you can't come in here, we're playing bingo'. Then the chairman and secretary of the centre refused to take the cheque off us. We were shocked at their response.

"We are both absolutely gutted, especially when we have worked so hard on this. It feels like it has been a complete waste of time.

"There a lots of charities out there that would be grateful for an amount like this. To throw it back at us is a real slap in the face."

Mary Town, secretary of the centre, said they were upset at being left out of the fund-raising effort.

She said: "We weren't involved with this calendar at all. We weren't given any calendars to sell, our pensioners were asking for them but we didn't have any.

"We have got to hear what was happening with it second hand - we have to read it in the newspapers.

"Then they just turn up unannounced, barged in with a photographer and tried to hand the cheque over. This is just typical of how this has been run.

"We are not saying that we are not thankful for the money, but it is the way that it has been done. We are glad that we have got the cheque.

"They will get a thank you letter from me but then that will be the end of it as far as I am concerned."

Moyra Livesey, one of the original Rylstone WI calendar girls, who sparked the craze for saucy calendars, said it was a shame it had ended this way.

Mrs Livesey, aka Miss May on the original character, 55, who runs Birchfield Residential Home, in Gorse Road, Blackburn, and who donated one of the original calendars to the fundraising effort which was auctioned for £600, said: "It is very difficult to make a go of these things commercially. It is definitely a step above the usual coffee mornings and it takes a different kind of expertise to make it a success.

"It is a great shame that it has had to end in this way but as long as the money has gone to the centre where it is so desperately needed then that is the main thing."