A mum from Hull is about to the grace the stage in Ms Pageant UK, after facing struggles of her past and “turning my life around”.
Amie Gladding, 34, of North Hull, has been selected for the grand finals of the national pageant contest, which celebrates girls and women from the age of 12, with no upper age limit, and accepts any marital status and entrants who have children. Amie is a finalist in the UK’s National Ms section, for those aged 30 to 44 years, and she will be travelling to the Park Hall Hotel, Chorley, in Lancashire, on Friday July 18 in a bid to claim the crown at the event, which runs over two days.
Amie, who is the mother of a young daughter, said: “I was quite a late contender for the contest. There are lots of different categories – I’m in the over-30s category – and it’s the same competition that Molly-Mae [Hague] was in before she was in Love Island.
“There are quite a lot of success stories from it. You don’t know where something like this can lead.”
Amie, who is a student and has done voluntary work, is busy raising funds for the Sedulo Foundation, a charity that supports local communities to alleviate the effects of poverty on children across the UK. “It’s the charity that the pageant works in partnership with, so it’s a bit of team work.”
(Image: Amie Gladding)
Amie said: “I’d eventually like to set up my own charity advocating for people who have been failed by the system. I had a difficult first few years of my life – I’m adopted – and it did affect my mental health growing up.
“I lost myself, really. I didn’t manage to follow the path I was hoping to. Because of my childhood I’ve struggled with insecurity and belief in myself; I’ve never really been confident in my own skin.
“I’ve worked hard at turning my life around since I’ve had my little girl and certain things I’ve been through have made me stronger. I want to inspire others that they can go after their dreams, no matter what they have been through, or their past, or where they come from, and I want to prove to people you are never too old to change your script.”
Amie said she did not believe “in a million years” she would find herself chosen for the finals of the competition, which will see her compete in a jeans and T-shirt round, a pink dress “above the knee” round and an evening ball gown round. “Then there will be the interview, a Q&A with the judges, which I am kind of rehearsing for, because I don’t want to be blank when they ask me something, but I also want to be authentic and natural.”
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