EARLY ON THE EVENING of the pageant, my sister Pommie and I walked out of the Britannia Hotel in London and climbed onto one of the long buses provided for Miss World 1970 contestants. We were by now familiar with the buses, and quite at home in them. They had been moving us back and forth to rehearsals and other events in the days leading up to the main event. When we found our seats, Pommie said to me, “Jen, do you like the way the hairdresser has done your hair? I think it could have been higher.”
“Oh yes,” I answered. “I like it. The crown, you see, will fit nicely just here.”
Pommie laughed and said that she was happy to see me so confident.
I cannot explain the confidence that possessed me on the evening of November 20, 1970, but I was definitely feeling it. Pommie had helped. She was much more than my older sister. She was my friend and confidant, and my guide to the world of style and fashion. To my mind, she was the most attractive and charismatic member of our family. Earlier that evening, she had appeared at my door to help me dress, wearing a smashing low-cut black evening dress, and announced: “Jen, I am wearing black in mourning for the other girls tonight.” Her confidence gave me confidence.
I did feel good about my hair, and my makeup and my jewellery too. And in the garment bags that Pommie and I lugged onto the coach, amid my stockings, my bathing suit and other items, was my secret weapon, my gorgeous gold evening gown. It was unique, a stunning creation (it would still stand out today). I knew it was spectacular, and I had carefully kept it under wraps, wearing another gown to the dress rehearsal. I did not want to reveal it until just the right moment.
But perhaps the biggest reason that I felt confident was that I was well prepared. Twenty-four hours earlier, that had not been the case. We had been at the Royal Albert Hall for what was supposed to be a complete dress rehearsal. All fifty-eight contestants, our chaperones, members of the press and the pageant organizers were supposed to run through the entire proceedings, just as we would the night after. As we were getting under way, Eric Morley, the head of Mecca, organizer of the Miss World pageant, took the stage, opened a piece of paper and called the names of fifteen girls. The chosen fifteen, he said, would go through the routine from start to finish. He gave the other forty-three girls permission to sit in the audience and observe the proceedings.
Needless to say, his announcement demoralized the forty-three contestants who looked on. Fifteen was the number of contestants who would survive the first elimination in the pageant. I was on the outside, one of the forty-three. We all felt that Morley had already made his choice of these fifteen finalists and the rest of us were surplus. We need not even rehearse (we had been on the stage before but not in our gowns and full heels, which is an entirely different proposition). It seemed only fair that we should be able to take a practice walk across the hall’s enormous and somewhat complicated stage. We were crushed.
I don’t think we were overreacting in the moment. It seemed to the press, as well, that the girls up onstage were the chosen few, and there would be captions in the papers the following morning highlighting the lucky fifteen. The contestants given the advantage of the full rehearsal also thought Morley’s actions were significant. Miss Sweden, Miss Australia and Miss Norway—all but one of the fifteen were white, and a non-white girl had never won the Miss World contest—began to act in a most condescending manner to those who were not chosen.
Pommie sat with me in the audience, watching the rehearsal. She tried to lift my spirits by saying that it was very bad luck for a girl to try on the crown prior to the big event. I recalled that nearly all the select fifteen had at some point during past rehearsals had the opportunity of wearing the crown. I thought, or hoped, that there was something to Pommie’s theory.
I was nevertheless hurt. When we got back to the Britannia that evening just after eleven o’clock, we were told that if any girls who were not quite happy with their performances would like to go to the Albert Hall in the morning and rehearse on their own, they were welcome to do so. Only six of the fifty-eight girls put their hands up: Miss New Zealand, Miss Malaysia, Miss Canada, Miss Ireland, Miss Venezuela and me. With tears of disappointment on my cheeks, I practised walking in front of the full-length mirror in Pommie’s room until well after curfew as she and my chaperone, Mrs. Protain, were deep in sleep. I finally crept down the fire escape to my own cold room at one in the morning.
I was up and dressed by eight thirty, determined to show these pageant people that they could prejudge all they wanted: I was going to do everything in my power to reach the finals. I was a little surprised at my attitude. I am not an especially competitive person, and I was not a professional pageant entrant. I only entered the Miss Grenada contest because I had been asked. It was the first time it had been held, and it was a big deal for our tiny island. The board of tourism was involved. I felt almost a civic duty to participate and, once I won, to represent Grenada as best I could. It is true that I told a cheering crowd at my departure, “I will leave no stone unturned. I shall do my best to return with the Miss World crown.” But I didn’t intend it as a prediction. It seemed the right thing to say in the moment. I had been more excited about returning to London, where I had trained with the BBC, than I was by the thought of winning the Miss World title. But here I was on the morning of the pageant, fully engaged.
The bus transported us around Hyde Park to the southwest end of Albert Hall at nine thirty. The BBC crews, preparing for what would be their highest-rated program of the year, were bustling around with their cameras and lights, working from scaffolding and rigs, sipping coffee to keep warm. The Albert Hall was always bitterly cold. The stage appeared ready for the evening and the six of us took turns walking to the marks left for us on the floor. It might seem a simple thing to walk across a stage; but, again, this one was enormous, and there were various raised rostrums or platforms on it of different sizes and heights, so one was always stepping up and stepping down, turning this way and that, meeting one camera here and another there. We were also to stop, pose and smile at specific points.
After each of us had walked the length of the stage about three times, the other girls felt they had done enough. It had taken about a half hour. I asked for permission to stay a little longer. The other girls went back in the bus, and I continued to practise my walk, getting a feel for the stairs, memorizing both their number and the distance between them. I practised walking with my head erect, not looking down at my feet as I stepped from mark to mark. I wanted to give the impression of gliding across the stage.
I was so engrossed in what I was trying to achieve that the sound of a man’s voice startled me. It was Lionel Blair, the famous actor and dancer, who would perform during the broadcast. “That’s right,” he said. “Practice is the only way. I work by that motto.” By the time I returned to the hotel, two hours later, I felt ready. Now, on the way back to Albert Hall, I was still ready.
We were in our own little bubble on the bus, the contestants and our minders. There was a murmur of low conversation, suggesting that we were all somewhat anxious. I practised my yoga, deep breathing whenever I started to feel nervous. I was determined to remain calm, take my time and not be rushed or flustered by anyone at this last minute.
In my mind, I was strategizing over all the possible questions Michael Aspel, the compère, or master of ceremonies, might ask me during the contest and how I would handle them. I wanted to appear spontaneous and answer appropriately, even wisely. Pommie and I had often discussed that while I was entering a beauty pageant: beauty was not the only thing on display. All the contestants were beautiful in their own ways. How could the judges possibly compare them, feature for feature, and determine that one was most beautiful? And if they could do such a comparison, I did not see how I could win. I would not be the most beautiful girl on the stage. So we spoke of the need to present what we called “the package,” a combination of beauty, grace, poise and intelligence. I worked on my answers.
The streets outside our bus were busy, the end of a cold and wet day, and as we approached the Royal Albert Hall there were obvious signs of a disturbance. Policemen surrounded the building, and a line of demonstrators stretched for nearly a block. They had placards that read “Cattle Market,” “Mecca and Morley are Pigs,” and “All for a Pound of Flesh.” The mood on the bus changed.
One of the first things I had been asked by a reporter on landing in the United Kingdom was my opinion on women’s liberation. The question was not unexpected. Women’s liberation was an international issue at the time, and it was something I had thought about. I told the reporter that I was conscious of the fact that women needed more opportunities, that we should, by right, be granted more opportunities, and I pointed out that times were changing—there was a woman sitting as governor of Grenada. The truth was that, for me, the pageant was itself an opportunity: I viewed it as a chance to have an experience, one that might lead to something more, whether or not I won.
As for “cattle markets,” I didn’t really understand the allusion. It seemed to me a stretch, an exaggeration, and the anger of the women outside our bus seemed to me radical. I had nothing against them, or their movement, but I thought there must be better ways to promote the cause. We were all aware that a BBC truck had been bombed in the night by some self-styled anarchists sympathetic to the feminists’ cause. It had been all over the news, and the pageant organizers had worried that their star host, the American comedian Bob Hope, would now refuse to appear.
As the bus passed the line, protesters rushed at us with their banners and placards: “We Are Not Ugly, We’re Angry,” “You Poor Cows,” “Miss World, Man’s World.” Some of them pounded with clenched fists on the sides of the bus. Others were pushing hard, trying to shake the coach. At one point they all started singing, “We Shall Overcome.”
We sat there, in our makeup and hairdos, looking out at the rampage. I had never really followed the Miss World pageant before or seen it on television. It was dawning on me what a big deal it must be to raise such a ruckus. Some contestants sang along with the protesters, defiantly, but several were obviously frightened. There had been a bomb, and now this. It was unsettling.
The Mecca men aboard did their best to keep us all calm, reassuring us that there was an abundance of security in place and that police had matters in hand. When the bus came to a complete stop, the doors flew open. We gathered our things and rushed out into the night, the rain, the noise and confusion. The fun, the drama and the history-making were only beginning.