A BRAVE butcher from Great Bardfield has bared all for a calendar photoshoot. Danny Smith, 44, who owns DK Smith Family Butcher in Great Bardfield, stripped naked and posed on horseback to help raise money for Everyman - a campaign run by the Institute of

A BRAVE butcher from Great Bardfield has bared all for a calendar photoshoot.

Danny Smith, 44, who owns DK Smith Family Butcher in Great Bardfield, stripped naked and posed on horseback to help raise money for Everyman - a campaign run by the Institute of Cancer Research for testicular cancer.

Mr Smith said: "I was quite nervous about taking all my clothes off, but I new it was for a good cause and the pictures were going to be done properly."

During a regular trip, delivering meat to the Horse and Groom Pub, in Cornish Hall End, Finchingfield, landlady Kelly Bishop persuaded Danny that it would be a good idea for him to take part.

When Danny got back home, he said to his wife, Rachel: "You'll never guess what I've just done? She burst out laughing, but she didn't mind," he said.

Danny said that he got the confidence to appear in the calendar after losing weight at at a slimming club in Takeley, which he started in February 2006.

"If I hadn't lost the three stone, I wouldn't have had the confidence to have this photo taken in the nude," he said.

Going to the gym helped to get him in shape, but his main source of exercise is horse riding and this inspired him for the idea of his pose in the picture.

At first they wanted him to be pictured in his shop, but Danny suggested they picture him riding his horse, Avalon.

The pictures were taken in July and Mr Smith, alias Mr July, has sold more than 100 copies of the £5 calendar. It can be bought at DK Smith Family Butchers and the Horse and Groom Pub.