The fundraising phenomenon of the Calendar Girls was inspired by the death of Angela Baker‘s husband John Richard Baker, an Assistant National Park Officer for the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority, who died from non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age of 54 in 1998. During his illness, Baker’s friends began to raise money, initially with the aim of purchasing a sofa for the visitors’ lounge in the hospital where John was treated.  To date, they have raised over £5 million for Leukaemia & Lymphoma Research, the UK’s leading blood cancer charity.