THERE WAS A SPECIAL CONTINGENT of both plain-clothes and uniformed policemen in the area where we disembarked from the bus. We were immediately ushered into the Albert Hall and then through a seemingly endless series of corridors to the dressing room. This was a large space divided by partitions to give more privacy. Large mirrors had been set up in front of bench-like tables for our use, and it was a case of first come, first served.
Just as there had been too few hairstylists available in the afternoon, there were too few tables for all the girls now. The more aggressive contestants talked the less assertive ones into changing tables or giving up their tables. Many of the shy girls stood to apply their final touch-ups and make their quick costume changes. As I was one of the first inside the dressing room, I was able to secure a fairly good table. It took a great effort, however, to keep it.
There were a number of makeup artists there to help the girls and one or two of the Harrods hairdressers. They went from table to table and did what they could between changes. The chaperones held clothes and offered moral support, which was greatly needed at the time. Cups of coffee, tea and orange soft drinks were available from a machine in the waiting room. I had asked for beer and before my first appearance onstage had finished off a Heineken.
Some of my relatives had arrived early. Before things got underway, I made my way to the backstage area, which was also covered by BBC cameras, and peeked through a tiny crack in the screen to find them. I spotted them sitting in a prominent position on the right side of the large hall in the second balcony row. I felt lucky. Apart from Pommie, I had another sister—Aileen lived in Gloucestershire with her English-born husband and two children—in the audience. They had secured tickets for themselves and many other members of the family. My brother arrived from France on the day of the contest. My uncle on my father’s side and his wife had been vacationing in Europe and were also present. A cousin, Anne, had been terribly excited about my entering and because of Aileen’s persistence and planning, they all got seats together.
It meant so much to me to have my most ardent supporters, my family, in the hall and as excited as it was possible to be. In addition, I had other supporters in the crowd. Mrs. Protain had secured tickets for her son, Gary, and his girlfriend, Audrey, and many other well-wishers from Grenada. I knew that when I took the stage, I would hear shouts of “Well done, Grenada” and “We’re backing you, Jennifer” and feel a boost. The knowledge that one has support in the crowd can be an important factor to anyone on a stage (just as the feeling that an audience is not with you can be devastating). Knowing where my relatives were seated would be a great advantage to me.
Being backstage and without televisions, we did not see a lot of the program that night. The opening for television audiences was a rotating gold crown against a black background so it appeared to be floating in space with an authoritative man’s voice saying: “The lure of a crown! Fifty-eight countries from all over the globe have sent beautiful girls to London tonight in search of a title. Ladies and gentlemen, Miss World 1970!”
The opening act was a seven-man modern dance troupe headed by Lionel Blair, whom I had seen at rehearsals that morning, now looking very mod in a double-breasted burgundy jacket over a frilly black shirt and bell-bottom trousers. His dancers scampered about the stage and sang:
Is it America, Australia or Mexico?
Is it Gambia? Mauritius? Well, we just don’t know.
Liberia, Nigeria or maybe Spain.
There’s just a chance Miss Austria might win again…
At the end of their number, all of us girls came out onstage in our national costumes—Miss America as Uncle Sam, Miss Canada as a Mountie, Miss Seychelles in a grass skirt, me in my nutmeg outfit—for Lionel’s grand finale:
Miss World! Miss World!
The most beautiful girl in the world!
We all scurried off stage and hurriedly changed into our evening gowns backstage. In front of the cameras, the judges were introduced, a panel of nine eminences, several of whom the Morleys had rounded up at a Commonwealth meeting that week: the high commissioner of Malawi, the Indonesian ambassador to the United Kingdom, the premier of Grenada, the maharaja of Baroda, the Danish singer Nina, Glen Campbell, BBC personality Peter Dimmock, the British film producer Nat Cohen and the actress Joan Collins, who was then at the height of her career.
I recognized Joan Collins from her role in Island in the Sun, a film set in the Caribbean and filmed in Grenada, also starring Harry Belafonte, Dorothy Dandridge, James Mason and Joan Fontaine. She had struck me as flirty and vivacious. I recalled that Nina had recorded songs with a Caribbean flavour that I had heard on the radio once on a visit to Italy. When I saw that the premier of Grenada was a member of the judging panel, my hopes of making the finals sank. I thought he wouldn’t vote for me, even if he thought I deserved it. He would feel obliged not to show favouritism to the contestant from his island. Another reason for my disappointment was that my father had not long before acted on behalf of the British government, which had brought (and won) a case against Eric Gairy for mismanaging funds in his capacity as chief minister of Grenada. As a result of my father’s efforts, Gairy had been put out of office. I did not expect he would put that entirely out of his mind even now, several years later, as head of the Grenadian government.
The next event would see us parade, one at a time, across the stage as the announcer said a few words about where we were from, our jobs, our hobbies and so on. This was the short trip that I had practised for so long that morning, and it was perhaps the most critical element of the contest. On this basis alone, the field of fifty-eight would be cut down to fifteen.
As soon as the girls began walking out to take their moments in the spotlight, the audience could start to appreciate the bewildering variety on offer and just how difficult it would be for the judges to make their choices. Some contestants were tall and strapping; others were fine-featured and petite. Every skin and hair colour imaginable was represented. Among the contestants’ occupations were model, typist, machinist, student, bank clerk and journalist. Some were in their first pageant; others had won as many as nine beauty contests on the road to this one.
The Mecca attendants were bustling around backstage to ensure that we all paraded out in proper order, alphabetically by country, and that we all wore on our gowns and our wrists the numbers that had been assigned us. Mine was twenty-one, which had been a reasonably lucky number for me in the past. (I remembered winning a raffle of a drum set, complete with cymbals, when I had chosen the number twenty-one at a children’s bazaar some ten years before.) It was quite an assembly line behind the curtain. As one Mecca person checked to make sure the next girl got up onstage at the appropriate moment, another Mecca person helped each girl leaving the stage back to the changing room by the quickest route. This chain operation had to be done efficiently because of the limited time allotted to each girl.
Yet another Mecca gentleman caused quite a stir in the dressing room. He was charged with caring for the crown, sceptre and cloak that the winner of Miss World 1970 would wear. A lot of eyes popped out as he passed through the waiting room. The crown was large with a solid gold base under intricate filigree interspersed with various stones and topped by a series of peaks with tiny gold balls. It had been designed only that very year to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of the Miss World contest and was insured reportedly for twenty thousand pounds, but how true that was no one knew. The sceptre was also gold and the kind one usually sees in museums. The cloak, also brand new, was of a rich gold material, with two hook fasteners in the front.
Right before my first appearance onstage, a strange thing happened. I was in my evening grown in the waiting room with Pommie when we noticed Miss Japan and her chaperone looking at me and whispering excitedly. It was only afterwards, at the ball, that I learned that Miss Japan had received a letter from her mother the day before the contest saying that she had had a dream in which a girl with a gold evening dress was crowned Miss World. I was the only girl in gold that evening. Pommie told me she, too, had a dream two days before the contest in which she and others in our family had carried me on their shoulders. At the time, I did not put much stock in dreams. As a child, I had always been told that dreams meant the reverse of what they appeared to mean.
Although I am not a big drinker, I managed to find a second Heineken before going onstage. It helped me relax. I knew how much was riding on this one tour of the stage, less than a minute in length. I had to nail it if I was going to convince the judges that someone from outside of Morley’s favourite fifteen deserved to be a finalist. I reviewed my game plan as I stood in the wings. I wanted to come out and say, Here I am, look at me. I’m not just a dress or a hairdo. I wanted to interest people, make an impression. It seemed to me that if the judges were looking for a new Miss World, I had to perform as if I already owned the title. I would put myself in character and adopt the regal bearing of a woman already accustomed to the crown.
Making an impression is easier said than done. I had seen in rehearsals the various ways that a girl could fail to put her best self forward. Some forgot to compose their faces, or to smile. Some did not move with confidence: they were stiff or shy or timid, forgetting to move their arms; or taking short, tentative steps; or glancing down at their feet, hiking their gowns before a step up or down. Some even lost their marks and wandered around the stage. Except for wandering around stage, these are small details, but they leave an impression—and they matter hugely when all the judges have to go on is how you move across the stage.
Finally, I came out from behind the curtain into the light at the top of the stage to hear my name called: “Miss Grenada.” I walked forward at a casual pace, tummy in, shoulders back, chin up, body relaxed, enjoying the applause. I took the first series of four steps down without looking at them, eyes toward the audience. I stepped nimbly, even eagerly, down them. It helped greatly that my gown was only to my ankles and flowed easily and did not interfere with my changing elevations (some girls wore gowns made to stand in as opposed to walk in).
I posed at the next mark, continuing to look at the audience, thinking of all those people as friends, not as strangers or adversaries. Several times I reminded myself to slow down. I was not going to push myself off the stage or let anyone else hurry me off. It might be the only opportunity I had. Crossing to the next mark, in front of the judges, I stopped and gave them a nod and a genuine smile, still taking my time. I tried to look each member of the panel in the eye. On a flight, I had once met a man who had judged beauty contests in New York and California. He told me that a judging panel is always made of different people from different backgrounds and that they seldom agree on standards of perfect beauty. Rather, he said, the human element is very important: “If you can look good and still maintain your humility and charm, you will stand a good chance.” And then I turned for the last part of the walk, moving my arms, and my hips too, not unnaturally but perhaps more than most contestants.
I felt I had done as best I could. Just as I was leaving the stage, a man sitting right up front jumped from his seat, stretched out his arm and handed me what looked like a calling card. It contained his name and address and identified him as a member of the Baltic Press. The card was ripped from my hand by a Mecca handler, no doubt for security reasons. After the contest, I was given the opportunity to read the other side of the card, which said, “YOU are the winner.”
When all fifty-eight girls had completed their appearances, we stood in anxious silence for the results of the first elimination, which would take us down to fifteen contestants. I was one of the lucky fifteen. Some girls who had not heard their names called slumped down in their chair, dejected; others said that everything was a fix and that the choices came down to politics; still others seemed relieved at not having to bother with the rest of the competition. Pommie would not let me dwell on the eliminations: “Never mind,” she said, “we still have a lot of work ahead of us so let’s get cracking.”