Stand on stage for a row of solemn jury members and an audience of hundreds, my hand is on my hip, my eyes are wide and I give my very best mite smile.
My body is covered in a blue sparkling dress with floors, I wear matching high heels and my face is covered with makeup, including lipstick and eyelashes.
Yes, it is a beauty competition, and your first reaction can be to think regressive and sexist. Well, hold your hats, because it has a further turn.
I was only 15 years old, and in a line-up of six other teenagers all waited to hear who the teenage queen would be crowned.
Many people have no idea that such competitions exist in modern Great -Britain, and they certainly do not realize how popular they are. But for five years I more or less competed up and down every weekend on the Circuit of the Children’s Beauty Contest – and also once in the US. I was in more than 300 parades, including one that had a swimwear.
During the week that my mother Sara, a former professional dancer, would coach me on dance routines and say something to the jury members-as the adult version of parades, we had to prove that we were ‘good girls’ that charity work. Early on Saturday morning we would both pack my sparkling dresses and go on the road, travel throughout the country from our house in Shoreham-by-Sea, West Sussex.
As a reward for our efforts, I won quite regularly, but in general my parents-mum was a receptionist and Dad a full-time caregiver for his mother-measurement more than £ 50,000 spent on my parade career.
There were competition -access costs of £ 250 per POP, flights, hotels, petroloutfits, singing lessons. Even a parade coach who helped me to work at my entrance and how I can deliver a pitch -perfect presentation.
Ella Collins-Godden won the Royal International Miss UK Teen in July 2017 and represented the UK in Florida for the international title, in which she became second
It may not be surprised to hear that emotions can run backstage, although much more often among the parents and judges than the teenager participants.
Take the ‘Face of the Globe’ parade where I was wearing that blue sparkling dress. Technically, I was the best in my teenage division (everyone said it!), But politics stood in the way. One of the jury members thought that ‘too often’ I won and accused another judge of having a preference for me, which – after a lot of arguing – meant her scores of my scores. Which means that I came soil. My mother was glowing.
I was 12 when I first looked at the American reality show Toddlers & Tiaras, a fly-on-the-wall documentary series that followed children and teenagers on the American parade circuit. Because of the all of the hair spray, makeup, the fake brown, I was the sparkling outfits, even the Ritzy Song and Dance Routines. It seemed such a dazzling and, in my opinion, positive world.
At that time I was bullied at school and saw it as a way out. I begged my mother, now 55, to let me participate and before I knew it, we were both addicted.
Although some of the parades in which I participated, such as the face of the world, have been stopped since my parade days, the current teenage competitions are Miss Teen Universe UK, Miss Teen Galaxy, Miss Teen Groot -Britain and Miss Royal Uk Teen. Sometimes a competition has different age reaches and they will include junior teen, teen and miss for adults.
There are different categories, including formal wear and, short in my case, swimwear. I loved parades, but even for me, parading on a swimming costume on heels when I was 15, was a deep uncomfortable moment. You may think that I describe a scene from the 1970s, but I am 24 today and this was less than ten years ago.
Of course the whole thing sounds like a gigantic red flag, but there was a real innocence from the competitors’ point of view. Even if the mothers were a little misled.
Heaven knows what message it sent – but we had fun and our mothers were always with us.
Despite her years, Ella Collins-Godden became a veteran of the parade circuit
I suppose the worst effect it had on me was that, as I got older and my body developed, I started to limit what I ate. It never became a complete eating disorder, but we were clearly all our figures and I wanted to keep mine as small and tidy as I could. Just like modeling, resting food is very normal in that world.
Perhaps it is no wonder that people in my city were reasonably scaled when it was first revealed that I was a beauty match at the age of only 13 – but that is no excuse for their reaction. When the local newspaper told a (positive) story about me, I became terribly troll, with people who stalk me online. I had to grow up fairly quickly.
Fortunately, the swimwear round has since been canceled from all British teenagers and replaced by an ‘ActiveWear’ round, which means the kind of close-fitting clothing that you would wear to the gym.
As a competitor we also had to talk about ourselves, our ambitions and our charity work. I have always worked with older people who do local volunteer work.
The glitterest parades are, it must be said, a little ‘big fat gypsy marriages’. The motto was a lot of ‘more is more’, with a lot of bling on the outfits, and Feestrock -Volksliederen to dance on. There was usually a Bryan Adams number involved!
I would find out what the theme was and to learn a routine and get the right outfit for it. With each parade you spend a good £ 300 on everything you need. At the height of my parade career I was sponsored by a local hair salon and when I did not compete, I had colored my hair there to put my natural blond color forward.
In addition to the mandatory sashes and crowns, prices usually consisted of sweets of sweets or makeup. It was only if you were lucky to win a place in the American final of some of the worldwide parades that you could watch to win the right cash prizes of a maximum of £ 3,000.
In general, the girls were friendly opposite each other – but the backstage of the mother drama could indeed be very bitchy. Mama was in various Facebook groups for parents of competitors and the comments could be very hurtful. It was a pretty abdominal owl to read comments as ‘Ella is not that beautiful’. Often you could see that with a glass of wine in her hand, and more than once a mother claimed that someone had hacked his account when they were criticized for their comments – although they would sometimes tell my mother: “It is not fair that you won Ella last weekend, my daughter looks much better than yours.”
If they did not agree with the decision of a judge about winning me, they would post that I suck them up and even accused me of flirting with the male judges. And all this when I was still of school age.
My award -winning performance came when I was crowned Miss Royal UK -Teen at the age of 16. It meant that I later had to compete against girls from all over the world in the Royal International Teen Competition in Orlando, Florida, what a huge deal was for me.
Mama came with me – it was the first time we had traveled to the US. I worked hard in advance; I had to write four essays and put together a portfolio of my charity work. Then it was a very intense ten days of competition against 40 other girls from all over the world. I finished second in a few categories, including the best international role model.
Although I made a few friends there, I didn’t have much in common with the American girls. Teenagers at the US Pageant Circuit can best be described as Christian and conservative species, and I can’t say that I agree with their ‘traditional’ views.
When I returned from Florida, I made the decision to fold the sashes away and fill the tiara’s. I was only 17, but there was so much to deal with, from online reactions from trolls to other mothers in competitions that got you dagging eyes. It made me really uncomfortable in the end.
While I enjoyed my years on the beauty queen -circuit – I really loved the moment when a tiara was placed on my head – if I had a daughter, would I let her do it? Sorry mom, but not a way. Because unfortunately it doesn’t matter how intelligent you are, the moment you tell someone you’ve ever brought you on the parade circuit, they write to you as a bimbo. And that rather makes the shine of the tiara.
- As told to Samantha Brick
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