A CALENDAR featuring volunteers’ dogs has been launched to help keep a Scottish fishing village’s independent lifeboat afloat.
Every calendar sold will contribute approximately £4 towards the upkeep of the St Abbs lifeboat, launched last year after a massive community fundraising drive.
The campaign was sparked by the RNLI’s decision to end a service which had saved 230 lives during more than a century of call-outs.
Despite support for the service from the National Trust for Scotland, the Scottish Sub Aqua Club, the British Sub Aqua Club and more than 13,500 people who signed a petition, the RNLI refused to reconsider and pulled out.
People from the village, which attracts divers from all over the UK and beyond, decided to try to raise £500,000 to operate their own boat. After intense fundraising and support from businessman Boyd Tunnock, of Tunnock’s bakers, the campaign succeeded and the boat was launched last year.
Donations are still needed to keep the service going.
“Every month features one of our volunteer’s pets,” said a spokesperson. “May features our coxswain’s adorable black labrador puppy, July our winchman’s gentle greyhound and December one of our fundraiser’s festively attired Italian spinone.
“The calendar covers from January 1, 2018, to February 28, 2019, giving you two extra months. So many of our crew’s pets wanted to appear in our calendar – they’d have been barking mad if they’d been left out!”
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