Even as a young child, she was no stranger to
trauma.
In November, 1966, when she was just three and a half,
her beloved baby brother, Trevor, died aged just
11 months - a victim of cot death.
What made the tragedy worse was that it devastated her mother,
a frozen fish packer, who suffered a breakdown such that she was
no longer able to climb down stairs and
needed to sleep long hours .
According to Angie, what restored her mum's will to
live was the compassion shown to her by Jehovah's
Witnesses who convinced her that even the darkest tunnel
has light at the end of it.
As she grew up, Angie often found herself resenting her
mother's new-found religious conviction - not least because it meant birthdays
and Christmas would never again be celebrated in the household.
Her unorthodox upbringing also isolated her from certain
aspects of school life - such as attending assemblies and RE lessons
- with the result that she was sometimes ostracised not just by her
classmates at Edward Street primary school but also by at least one of her
teachers who ritually singled her out for humiliation.
There were further torments at two other schools she attended
- Yarborough Road Junior and Lindsey High - including one, at the latter, where
she became involved in a scuffle after another girl jabbed her in the
chest, branded her a "weirdo" and
described her mum as "one of those freaks who goes round trying to brainwash
people on the doorstep".
The two girls were summoned to the study of the head of year,
Mr Duffield, who told Angie: "Remember what they say about sticks and stones . .
."
Turning to the other girl, he said: "There is no room for
bigots - and if you don't know what that means, go and look it up."
Turning to both, he finished: "Now clear off
the pair of you."
Although she did not follow in her mother's footsteps by
becoming become a Jehovah's Witness herself, the religious influence
prevailed.
Angie is a believer who
has regularly attended Bible study classes for much of her life. The
registered address of her company, Miss England Ltd, is at a
church.
Now living in Leicestershire, Angie decided to put
down her experiences in a book, The Frog Princess, in
which she revealed how, as a child, she once had a spell in care after
temporarily falling out with her dad, a dock worker.
He disapproved of the close friendship she had formed , when
she was just 13, with a boy, especially when it resulting her bunking off school
to be in his company.
As she reached her 20s, any tensions with her
parents eased, and it was a matter of regret that, after 30 years'
marriage, they decided to split.
Her father subsequently met another woman - then converted to
Islam, took the name, Sharif and mysteriously disappeared from the life of
Angie and her two brothers, David and Ian, plus sisters, Becky and
Anna.
Angie also describes some of the other men that have been in her life.
These include one whom she feared would throttle her to death after a row in his
car until she managed to alert a passing couple by banging on the window.
That incident was followed by a terrible fight which she recounts in
disturbingly graphic detail. At the end of it, she says she could hardly
recognise herself in the mirror.
"My face was red and puffy, streaked with tears, mascara and blood from a
split lip.
"In the morning it would look worse. I would have bruises all
over."
The incident culminated early the next morning in her fleeing their
shared house in her dressing gown and slippers.
In recounting these episodes, Angie was assisted by her
co-writer, Maria Malone, who visited her twice a week for
three months to note down the narrative
"It was like being in therapy," says Angie. "My sessions with
Maria brought back memories I though had
been buried for ever."
The most fascinating aspects of the book, however, are those in
which she describes how her career as a beauty queen developed during
the 1980s when pageants were held at almost every major seaside resort in
the country.
For one event at Skegness, she arrived in the nick of
time to register after whizzing down on the back of her boyfriend's motor
cycle - with a crash helmet over her rollers!
Her description of the ride seemed to amuse the
judges, and she won the first prize - £100.
But her catwalk debut, after finishing a day's work as a waitress at Dot's
Place cafe in Riby Square, Grimsby, came at the old Winter Gardens on Cleethorpes seafront in 1979 when she was
16.
Although a shy teenager from a sheltered background,
she had an uncharacteristic and inexplicable impulse to take part
in the local heat of a Miss YTV beauty contest.
She entered even though it meant parading in a
tight-fitting swimsuit in front of a large audience, some of whom would
probably know her.
" I don't know what made me go in for it," she says. "Looking
back, it's a wonder I didn't do a runner, especially in the dressing room when
it dawned what I had let myself in for.
"My legs were so wobbly with nerves, it
was wonder I was even able to stand."
Alas, but unexpectedly there was no fairy tale end to that
particular day. Angie did not win.
The other contestants - one of whom was Della Dolan who
went on to come third in the 1982 Miss World - were far more
experienced. Bronzed and groomed, they knew how to
present themselves to most glamorous effect to the judges.
Even so, there is no doubt that the occasion changed
Angie's life, not least because it gave her a huge shot of
self-confidence, especially when she received many compliments from friends
and family after a photograph of the 10 contestants appeared in the Grimsby
Evening Telegraph. Even
her evangelically-inclined mother was secretly quite proud.
The experience also opened her eyes to opportunity and led her
on the road - one down which she is still travelling - .to sparkling
success.
With no qualifications, Angie has made a career in
beauty pageants - first as a regular contestant, then as an event
organiser.
As a competitor, she notched up numerous wins at resorts all
over the country, including that of Miss Lincolnshire, Miss Lovely Legs
and Miss Cleethorpes.
Her beauty, friendliness, intelligence and
warm personality brought spin-offs in the form of promotions and
modelling work which opened the doors to extensive travel not just within the UK
but also to Dubai and other exotic locations.
Not bad for a girl with no qualifications who had earlier worked
variously behind bars, as a waitress (including a spell at an Indian
restaurant on Cleethorpe Road) and, alongside hundreds of other women in a white
overall and a hair net as a quality control operative on a conveyor
belt at Findus Foods.
As a teenager, Angie also used to enjoy performing
in Grimsby with an amateur dance group - her solo
speciality being to sing her own version of the Kate Bush hit,
Wuthering Heights.
"None of us had any formal training - we just loved getting
together and rehearsing," she says.
Although the popularity of beauty pageants had taken a dip
over the past couple of decades, the Miss England competition continues to
thrive.
Now living in a village outside
Leicester, Angie is in her 15th year as a director
of Miss England and keen to encourage more girls from
the Cleethorpes and Grimsby area to consider following in her footsteps on the
catwalk. The details are on the website www.MissEngland.info.
"I don't think there was ever a less likely beauty queen than
me," she says. "When I was younger, I was so shy and lacking in self-confidence I
never dared open my mouth.
"The first time I got on the catwalk at the Winter Gardens, I
hadn't a clue what I was doing, but it really didn't matter.
"The main thing was to get out there and give it my best shot.
I knew it was a chance to make things better, and I was determined to take
it."
- For this year's Miss England final, held in Southport
from July 19-21, Great Grimsby was represented by 19-year-old
Mille Margetts who works for estate agents Pygott & Crone and who once
starred as a pantomime munchkin in The Wizard of Oz.
- The Frog Princess is published in paperback, at
£6.99, by Penguin.
