Age-old calendars make a comeback
Cliff Richard might be as old as the Gregorian calendar, but staring out from the cover of his 2012 calendar in a clingy wet T-shirt, the sultry Peter Pan pensioner is still having a funny effect on ladies' legs.
Cliff Richard might be as old as the Gregorian calendar, but staring out from the cover of his 2012 calendar in a clingy wet T-shirt, the sultry Peter Pan pensioner is still having a funny effect on ladies' legs.
"Phwaw! I'll have a bit of that on my kitchen wall," says a jelly-limbed woman browsing the racks in Shrewsbury's Calendar Club UK shop. "He gets better with time."
As it happens, the passage of time and the Dorian Gray-like Mr Richard are a match made in heaven. Oh yes, the Devil Woman man is spearheading a resurgence of interest in that age-old recorder – the humble calendar.
Tomorrow is the day that we hang up our new calendars and it seems that, despite being in the midst of the digital revolution, we still love old-fashioned paper planners.
Nationally, the enduring popularity of calendars this year has translated into sales never seen before, with one major retailer - Calendar Club UK – expecting to sell five times the number of calendars it sold a decade ago.
Celebrity calendars on the back of TV shows such X Factor are driving the trend. But as well as these, in Shropshire people are ticking their days off on all manner of weird and wonderful calendars bearing images of everything from yoga dogs and cats in hats, to vintage tractors.
Jason Willis, Ludlow-based area manager for Calendar Club UK which has outlets in Telford and Shrewsbury, says: "Sales of calendars have increased, we have had a good year. We have grown and I cannot see any reason why it shouldn't continue.
"I think people still like to see where they are and what they are doing in the year ahead and be able to plan it out for the next 12 months."
There really is something for everyone's tastes. As well as keep-fit pets, there are calendars with hedgehogs, on-duty meerkats, heavy horses and Harry Hill.
If you are into cartoons there's Dennis The Menace and Peppa Pig, while angst-ridden teens are catered for with the Vampire Diaries. As well as Sir Cliff, best sellers include calendars featuring the boy band One Direction and the hair-perfect heartthrob Justin Bieber.
"One Direction has been phenomenal, and the calendar for Mark Wright from The Only Way Is Essex has been doing well," says Jason.
Locally, there are plenty of calendars being produced right here on our doorsteps featuring images of Shropshire.
Shropshire Historic Churches Trust has produced its 21st Anniversary 2012 calendar, featuring images of 55 county churches, with a front cover of St John the Baptist, Hope Bagot, near Cleobury Mortimer.
And in Worfield, calendar girls and boys have stripped to their bare essentials to produce a 2012 planner to remember, with proceeds going to the Breakthrough Breast Cancer charity.
In the digital age, our continuing need to externalise time using visual tools such as calendars is something that clinical psychologist Dr Angel Adams understands.
She says: "There is a part of the pre-frontal cortex that is where we have the 'executive functioning mechanisms', and that is the part of our brain that allows us to plan and learn from the past, and think about the future.
"When we are using calendars and planning, we are really accessing that part of the brain. People like something tangible – it's just a wonderful way of having time externalised."
Craig Bailey, manager of the Card Factory in the Darwin Centre in Shrewsbury, says that despite the emergence of electronic organisers within gadgets such as smartphones and iPads sales of calendars have more than held their own.
There are even growth areas. Through its website www.gettingpersonal.co.uk the company has started making personalised calendars which allow people to feature pictures of themselves or their family.
