A BRAVE GP battling an aggressive form of cancer will join forces with his fitness club friends to bare their abs for a charity calendar.

Michael Barsby, 42, from Clitheroe, who could soon be known as Mr July or November, and his wife Susan, will cast aside clothes and inhibitions, along with around 52 members of the Crossfit Clitheroe group, to create Crossfit Clitheroe Uncovered.

The calendar will raise money for Pancreatic Cancer UK following Michael’s diagnosis a year ago.

Michael, who lives in Dorset Drive and worked at Kiddrow Lane Health Centre in Burnley, had extensive, private surgery – known as the Whipples Procedure – in Germany last February.

Surgeons removed his pancreas, along with his spleen, gall bladder and part of his stomach after he was told he was not suitable for the operation in the UK.

The father-of-three now has to wait five years to see if he can be given the all-clear.

The group hopes the calendar will raise funds towards research into the disease to improve poor survival rates of 3.7per cent.

Around 8,463 people are diagnosed with the disease every year. Calendar boys and girls will brave the cold of the centre’s unheated training rooms later this month with the help of local photographer Zoie Carter Ingham.

Michael said: “I’m excited about doing this for the charity and can’t say I’m nervous.

“It’s amazing to get so many people involved and I’m really touched by their support, as raising money for research into the cancer will have such an important impact on the health of sufferers in the future.”

The calendar is expected to go on sale via the group’s Facebook page at www.facebook .com/pages/Crossfit-Clitheroe-Uncover ed/498100663618959?fref=ts