Ged Desforges loses his shirt at Gogarth.

Christmas day, sometime after dinner. I’m tipsy, sleepy, and in a warm room packed full of a good selection of parents, brothers, sisters, various cousins, uncles, aunts, pets, and family friends. And they’re all about to see my new girlfriend naked.

It had all seemed like an excellent idea at the time. To produce a charity calendar to help raise money for the Newcastle University Mbarara Project. The project is a five-year scheme set up by the Civil Engineering students at Newcastle University, aiming to provide a centre of education and recreation in the poverty stricken town of Mbarara in southern Uganda. This is the third year of the project, and 12 Newcastle students are hoping to finish building the primary school when they head out this summer.

The only snag is that the intrepid students not only have to build the school, they also have to raise the £20,000 required to pay for building materials and resources. And with money tighter then ever, and student loans mounting daily, these 12 students were starting to look more than a little worried. So, having got tired of toying with freshers, and with the weather getting a little too wet to climb anyway, some bright spark at Newcastle University Mountaineering Club decided to come to the rescue and exploit their considerable resources of toned physique for a good cause. Just remember, they whispered persistently - it’s all for charity, mate.

I admit. Being a shy and retiring type, I hadn’t wanted to get involved at first, and had run a mile - a few hundred to be precise. Four of us had fled for the sanctuary of Gogarth on the weekend of the planned photoshoot. Well we reasoned, if the rest of the club wanted to scare the general population by exposing themselves at Shafto, we’d go and terrify ourselves with the exposure at Gogarth. We weren’t copping out, if anything, we were actually being more heroic.

As it happened, the Shafto shoot all passed very smoothly, save a gaggle of ageing ramblers having one of their more memorable days out for years. There was plenty of giggling and frolicking, and the borrowed photographer had a blast. His best day out for ages he declared - well, until it came to the boys turn. That wiped the smile off his face rather quickly.

But down at Gogarth we four started to feel well, a little left out. It was a cold, cold day, and conditions were mint, but suddenly we all started to feel a little prick of worry. Exactly how hard would we have to climb to make up for our disgraceful absence at Shafto? At exactly what grade would the inevitable accusations of cowardice begin to die out? I had a nasty suspicion that our planned objective of Gogarth (E1), wouldn’t cut it, and an E2 probably wouldn’t be much better either. So just where did that leave us? On Gogarth E3 and above, that’s where. In short, with our pants down.

Silence descended as we scanned the guidebook, but it seemed a bit bare when it came to soft-touch E3’s. Damn. To save face there was only one solution - a late stage contribution to this pesky project, we just hoped those Ugandan children would appreciate it.

So you know that useless telegraph pole on the walk into Gogarth that has no telegraph wires attached to it - the one you always want to climb up? Well, turns out that it’s not so useless after all, it’s absolutely perfect for when you get that old urge to climb up something naked. The first couple of moves are a bit necky, you have to campus up the rungs, with the considerable objective dangers of splinters. Thankfully the Irish Sea has done its weathering job well, and we escaped unscathed.

We scurried to the top, managed to bag a few photos looking wistful (or something) and shot back down so quick you’d think it’d been electrified, scrambling around trying to find clothes and maintain some last scraps of dignity. It was only afterwards of course that we realised you can see this pole for miles around, since it’s stuck right on top of the hill. I’m sure the Gogarth bird twitchers had a shock too, “oh, what’s that roosting on that pole, I’ll just get my binoculars.”
Job done, we carefully stashed the precious memory card, bagged the route, and headed back up north, our heads held high. This charity calendar thing was easy, I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about.

I took a deep breath, and handed the calendar round.

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