Teen beauty Deborah in finals of national contest

Last updated 10:34, Tuesday, 07 October 2008

A Cumbrian teenager is hoping to add beauty queen to her list of achievements after beating 5,000 hopefuls to a national final.

Deborah Ingram

Slideshow: photos of Deborah Ingram

Deborah Ingram, 18, from Long Marton, near Appleby, is one of 30 girls through to the last stage of Miss Teen Queen UK 2009.

And the sixth-former almost didn’t enter the competition.

“They asked me to enter when I was at the Clothes Show Live last December,” said Deborah. “But a few weeks later they sent me a parental consent form and I never returned it.

“Then a month and a half ago they wrote to me again, asking me to enter this year and my mum said I might as well.”

It was a good decision, with the teenager just finding out that she’s made it to the final 30 and will now take to the catwalk in front of a panel of judges in July.

“I worked really hard for the last round because I really wanted to get through,” she said.

“I went round pushing leaflets through people’s doors and at one house I got bitten by a dog through the letter box!

“I’d like to thank everyone who voted for me.”

The contest has given Deborah – who is studying for her A-levels at Penrith’s Queen Elizabeth Grammar School and hopes to read geography at Edinburgh – the modelling bug.

“After the photo shoot in the last round I thought ‘I want to do that again’. We’ll see what happens in July but I’d like to send my pictures to some agencies.”

The news capped off a busy week for Deborah, who not only turned 18 on Saturday, but ran in last Sunday’s Great North Run for Breast Cancer.

“It was really good fun, but I’ve got blisters on all my toes. I collected some donations for running, a few pounds here and there, and I’m giving it to Breast Cancer because my nana and two of my school friends’ parents were affected.”

And, understandably, dad Barry is proud of his daughter.

“We’re enormously proud of her, she’s absolutely fantastic but she’s my little girl,” he said.

“It’s not just because she’s beautiful and she’s managed to get through, it makes no difference to me whether she’s a beauty queen or whatever she wants to do.”