How It All Began

In all honesty, I completely fell into pageantry. I remember a very brief, yet distinct, conversation with my first boyfriend circa November 2011 where, for whatever reason, the subject of pageants came up and I remember him saying "Don't ever do one of them, yeh?". I'm pretty sure this was purely down to the fact there was a bikini round but none the less, I laughed in his face and replied with "never in a million years". At that point I didn't even know pageants existed in the UK, never mind have any inclination that I'd ever be involved. Well fast forward 8 years and had he still been in my life, he'd have seen me attending an event in my beautiful crown at the very same hotel where that very brief but distinct conversation took place.

During that relationship, I moved to Paris to undertake a contract at Disneyland Paris and that's where my world got flipped on its head. After a standard parade shift, we would often frequent the local bar Billy Bob's. One November night, not long after I had broken up with the aforementioned male in my life, we found ourselves sharing our beloved bar with around 40-50 girls all donning white sashes with glittery, purple writing. After a few moments of "What the hell is going on? Is this a hen do? Why do they all match?", I found myself honing in on the wording and, through the crowd, spotted one girl with the title 'Face of Forth Valley'. My little Scottish heart leapt because, as I quickly shouted, "That's near me!". I mean, it's not really but we were in France so in the grand scheme of things...I wasn't lying.

I had the next day off and found myself googling for my life to find out where these girls had come from and why they were there. After finding some of their Facebook pages, I then found the actual competition and before I knew it, my day had been filled with my first bout of pageant research. I decided I wanted to get involved in this world that finds you line dancing at 10pm in Disneyland. I'd love to say that I had an epiphany about my purpose in life and that I'd finally found my calling but in reality, at that point, my two sources of motivation were the pretty crowns and dresses and essentially telling the ex to go stuff.

Two months after I got home from Paris I took part in a closed selection for Team Scotland for Miss European. I borrowed a friend's little sister's prom dress and wore the ugliest shoes I've ever owned. Needless to say I didn't make the team but I did meet Deone Robertson that day, a connection which proved imperative in my pageant journey. I went home and was determined to crack into this little, new world I'd found so clicked to the website for the system that I'd come across at Disney, applied, and became Face of Glasgow 2013.

After securing sponsorship in the form of a friend who believed in me, a local photographer who went on to become the most supportive of boyfriends in the pageant stakes, and the amazing MACS hair studio in Glasgow's West End; I competed for the title of Face of Scotland on September 8th 2013. That was one of the most...let's say, interesting...experiences of my life; but I refused to believe that was as good as pageants got. Circle back to Deone, who I had become fast friends with by this point. She had raved about pageants and I knew that she was already well versed in the industry so I fully trusted her judgement. Once again, I didn't give up. The following March, I went on to compete alongside Deone in Miss Galaxy Scotland 2014 (which she went on to win). I had finally found my pageant home with the PageantGirl UK organisation, and the rest is history!