36 years to win beauty pageant title

A RETIRED teacher who has been dreaming of winning Britain’s most prestigious beauty pageant for the past 36 years says she is “grateful” to have finally done it.

- By Jon King

Laura White was crowned Ms Great Britain Classic in front of a crowd of cheering supporters at the Athena in Leicester.

She says: “I feel so pleased, humble and grateful. It has been a long time coming, Finally.

“Miss Great Britain is the pinnacle of pageantry. If I had been presented with a gold medal at the Olympics, it wouldn’t have touched it.”

The mother of two, 57, watched Miss Great Britain as a child in the 1970s and went on to compete in the 1980s. In 1989 she reached the final but missed out on the crown.

Under the competition’s rules at that time, Laura, from Cardiff, had to give up her dream when she married in 1991 and went on to have a son and daughter. Being a wife and mum — and getting older — barred women from taking part.

She said: “Times have changed now, thank goodness. Back then, you would turn up in your swimwear and someone would win based on that. That was it. It’s completely different now. It’s a celebration of female empowerment rather than just a beauty contest.

“It’s female orientated. We're not doing this for the benefit of men — we're sisters doing it for ourselves.”