I love Miss World, and I am so looking forward to watching the finals this month and seeing Miss England 2015 Natasha Hemmings smash it!

However, there is one round I am hoping they include this year, and it so happens to be the round that I won in the national finals of Miss England this year.

Kirsty Heslewood, Miss England 2013 and Miss UK 2013/2014 introduced the ‘Brainy Beauty’ round in 2014 to prove that the Miss England competition is more than a beauty contest.  All Miss England finalists take part in a 10 minute quiz with the top scorer being fast tracked to the final 15 of the contest. The questions are on a number of subjects, including maths, history, English, grammar, literature, geography etc.

In 2014 Miss Oxfordshire Amelia Watts came out on top in the very first Brainy Beauty round. I was in the finals of Miss England that year as well, yet I didn’t make the top group for this round.

This year, I won’t deny the test was tough. But I had revised a little the night before, knowing that while a lot of rounds in competitions are down to judges’ perceptions, this was a round that I could wholly control the outcome of, based on whether I knew the answer or not, and that really appealed to me. Plus after seeing how hard the test was in 2014, I wanted to prove to myself that I was smart! I have a degree and spend my days talking to people from all over the world so I was hoping my knowledge base was up to scratch!

Luckily I reached the top six, which were invited back to answer another, much tougher may I add, five questions to crown the winner of this round. And, somehow, I won it! This meant I was automatically through to the top 15.

The Miss England competition reflects a lot of the Miss World rounds, including Beauty With A Purpose, Top Model, Sportswoman, and Publicity (or Multimedia). With the Miss World competition recently dropping the Beach Beauty round, I think replacing it with an intelligence test would really show people who have a negative stance on the competition, that it really is a 21^st contest celebrating all attributes of womankind – brains and beauty. And wouldn’t it be amazing to see our national finals influencing the biggest beauty competition in the world?

P.S. I am hoping to hold a Brainy Beauty round at the Miss Hampshire 2016 finals so if you’re thinking of entering, and I get the opportunity to do this, get revising brainy beauties! J