£20 celebrity charity calendar pulped after failing to sell

FEATURING a raft of tartan-clad Scottish celebrities, it was supposed to raise thousands of pounds for a charity battling poverty in the Capital.

But now thousands of the Kilted Scots calendars featuring the likes of Irvine Welsh, Billy Boyd and Ronnie Corbett are set to be pulped after failing to sell.

The council-backed One City Trust is understood to have spent around £55,000 on a print run of 10,000 calendars but sources close to the charity claim only a couple of hundred have actually been sold.

An original price tag of £19.99 on the super-sized calendars is thought to have put people off and the charity has resorted to giving them away over the last month.

The calendars were on sale at a handful of shops across the Capital, with many slashing their prices by half within weeks when it was realised they were not selling.

The trust, set up by former Lord Provost Lesley Hinds, promotes social inclusion by tackling inequality and poverty.

Celebrity kiltmaker Howie Nicholsby, who helped organise the project and provided the outfits, today said the initiative had not been a total loss because it had helped raise the public profile of One City Trust.

But a council insider said: "It is all a bit embarrassing. The price was too high, they were great cumbersome things and we left it a bit too late to sell them.

"In the end they could hardly give them away and I think lessons have to be learned on this one. It was a good idea but the execution wasn't great. Who is going to pay £20 for a calendar?"

A source close to Lord Provost George Grubb, who is on the board of One City Trust, added: "He is very unhappy with these figures and as a board member will be looking to make sure they don't have this problem again."

One City Trust has a number of high-profile ambassadors, including Celtic manager Gordon Strachan, author Ian Rankin and millionaire businessman Sir Tom Farmer.

Mr Nicholsby, who has designed kilts for Robbie Williams, KT Tunstall and Alan Cumming, supplied the outfits for the calendar.

He said: "I gave my time and the outfits for free, and the models also didn't cost anything, so apart from the print-run it wasn't that expensive a project.

"I know people will look at the costs but there are positives from this, such as the good publicity that One City Trust has got from this.

"Perhaps in hindsight the trust will think the print-run was a bit too much and the pricing level was initially perhaps a bit high but I don't think this was a wasted exercise by any means."

Nobody from One City Trust was available for comment.