The idea of a male centrefold became not just a way to fill the empty gig guide pages in the middle of Bellbottom magazine, but to also lift the spirits of the industry and community with a little humour.

"When COVID hit there's no gigs so I thought it would just be funny to do something a bit different with the space," Bellbottom Media's managing director, Ben Eckersley, said.

"We've changed a lot of the content in the magazine because there is just a lot less events happening."

'Stopped in the street'

Local composer and musician Scott Collins was Bellbottom's first centrefold for the May edition and the photo was one his wife took after she was nominated for a Facebook nature talent challenge.

"The film 'American Beauty', where they had a teenage girl in roses; we've mimicked that," Collins said.

"I'm lying down on the ground with a bikini of Tibouchina flowers covering me and Tibouchina flowers all the way around like a blanket — it's quite stunning really."

He said he has received a lot of feedback from the centrefold.

"I get wolf-whistled, I get 'good to see you with clothes on', my wife's friends are coming around to the house more often than is probably necessary and I think it's probably because of that centrefold," Collins said.

"Jack Thompson, the local who was part of the Cleo 1970s centrefold … I kind of reflect and think about him at this time as well."

Kai Tipping from Nambucca is this month's centrefold.

"I quickly asked my lockdown lover, 'can you bang a photo out?' — It was just on my little iPhone 7," Tipping said.

"I wanted to get painted up but we had to quickly get the photo in. It was early in the morning, the kind of scene was set.

"I've got a couple of drums I made and hand painted … that's luckily there."

Tipping said Mr Eckersley at Bellbottom rejected the first photo he had sent in that was taken on the beach.

'Just keeping it going' during pandemic

Mr Eckersley said a lot of advertisers have had to pull out because they just can't afford to advertise.

"We have enough advertising to pay the print bill basically and because I'm a sole trader — an independent publisher — I'm just keeping it going," he said.

"Especially when COVID first hit, everyone was in lockdown so we started delivering the paper to letterboxes and everybody was loving it because they could get it every month, have a read, help take their minds off things."

Story By | Luisa Rubbo and Fiona Poole