First and most important thing to know about me is, I love an adventure. I live for surprising people about what I am about to do next, and am always looking to one up myself. At 16, I was Head Girl of my school. At 18, I was the skateboarding champion of the South East of England. At 19, I took my first ever solo trip to Singapore. At 20 (A few months ago), I solo travelled 9 states on the East Coast of America. Now, at 21, I am competing in Miss England, which I would say has been my wildest venture so far. Life’s short!
I was brought up very differently from most people I know. My mother was an extremely intelligent property developer, charismatic, cheeky, edgy, and with a burning a love for life. When I was 11, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, and battling this throughout all my school years. As soon as I turned 14, I started volunteering in our local Cancer Research UK charity shop weekly. 7 years later, I am still volunteering there, and have raised approximately £125,000 for the charity in goods sold. I always wanted to run for head girl at school, and at 16, I ran for it – with little confidence that I would win – but was determined that my mum would see me win it before she died, and to my disbelief, I won. I organised multiple charity events there, organized Christmas present collections for disadvantaged children, and won the humanitarian award for my school. Focusing on schoolwork during her illness took extreme discipline – I would often come back to her passed out or extremely unwell, but I was determined not to compromise my health or slack from my studies, as she would be disappointed if I did – I ended up achieving the highest grades in my whole year.
At 17, my mum’s illness became progressively worse, and I began longboard freestyle (a form of skateboarding) as an escape to this. I became addicted to skating and would often perform in front of thousands of people on Brighton seafront with my skateboarding friends. At 18, I was the female South East longboard freestyle champion. My mum died shortly after this when I was 17. The thing my mum always enforced upon me was standing out from the crowd, and to never be pressurized into doing anything just because everyone else was. When she died, I decided that instead of crumbling into grief, I would take her zest for life and run with it, allowing it to live on through me. I was always torn with what I wanted to do as a career and all my friends were off in university. The majority of them tell me they were drinking excessive amounts, had poor mental health and would be racking up huge debts. Because of this, I instead took up a job as a receptionist in a local law firm, and in under a year of me being there, I was promoted to a paralegal. I was the youngest paralegal there and learnt on the job, and at the age of 19, I ended up training newly hired university law graduates. I have since moved law firms and am still the youngest paralegal, and am only a few months away from professionally qualifying. I have had to dedicate lots of my free time to courses alongside work to allow for this, and rarely put my revision down wherever I am – I will probably be revising backstage at miss England!
Money is tough for us all in this generation – and whilst university can be essential for some careers and can offer great opportunities and life experience to some, the majority of people I know that come out with degrees struggle to find jobs, or end up working in something worldly different and complain about the debts they are in. Most will be paying off a university debt their whole life. With my title, I would like to promote to women alternative routes into careers that don’t require a university degree, such as apprenticeships, internships and self studying courses. Progressing through the career ladder whilst learning on the job only requires an open mind, an ability to network and a vision – I would like to show that getting a respected career only takes your own hard work and discipline and sometimes no more than that. The alcohol heavy nature of university can often lead to poor mental health upon students and lack of motivation. I would therefore like to be able to break the stigma that only university can lead you into a good career, and encourage those that can’t afford or do not want to go.
Faye’s A Level textiles project, which showed the effects of smoking on the inside of a body.
Despite constant peer pressure, I have never been drunk, I have never smoked, and I have never used drugs –yet I am still having the best few years of my life. Declining usage of these substances can often make you feel excluded from social situations, hence why so many participate. Poor mental health can be largely down to substance abuse, so I would also like to advocate for a generation of less alcohol, less smoking and less drug use, showing how you can still live a crazy and exciting life whilst retaining respect for your body. Not using any of these has been the only factor that has kept me disciplined in life. My textiles project at A levels was based around the effects of substance abuse on the body, where I would make clothes that looked like the inside of a damaged human body. Maybe one day I would like to showcase and continue with these designs.
Lastly, charity is of huge importance, however with the cost of living, not everyone has a spare £5 to give to charity, which has become apparent to me during this competition. I would like to show ways that we can all make a difference to charities that may not be as financially demanding people. These include volunteering in charity shops, local hospitals, even donating clothes. Everyday is an adventure and has no limits as to what we can achieve.
Faye will be competing in the next Miss England national final taking place at the Grand Station Wolverhampton on the 16th & 17th May 2024 sponsored by Watermans Hair.
For tickets to support Faye at the event visit the Grand Station Website to find out more
