‘I was just missing a little bit of sparkle!’ Pharmacist, 42, gets divorced and enters Ms Great Britain – and reaches final
Have you ever thought about taking up a new hobby outside the day job in pharmacy?
For one Hampshire-based pharmacist, entering the world of beauty pageantry appealed and in less than a year, she has become a finalist for the England’s longest running pageant Miss Great Britain.
42-year-old Emily Bond is a clinical prescribing pharmacist in Havant, with over a decade spent in community pharmacy before moving into general practice during her nineteen-year career.
But after her divorce was finalised last year, she realised she had never really had a hobby before and wanted to do something “where I could meet new people” and “do the fundraising, the community work” she had previous experience in.
She told C+D “I wanted to have a bit of glamour in my life as being a pharmacist, a wife, and a mum isn’t very glamorous. I was just missing a little bit of sparkle.”
“Support more women and girls”
A friend jokingly told her to enter the Miss World competition, and despite thinking she would never get in, Bond felt it would “do me good to take some photos, do the entrance essay, and be a good opportunity to reflect on what I want”.
She then heard back from two pageants where she participated in the ‘Ms’ age group categories, the first being July’s UK’s National Miss competition and now Miss Great Britain which will take place on October 18.
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After spending 2024 integrating into the pageantry world, Bond wants to support more women through her new hobby and hopefully develop “workshops in secondary schools” to do this.
“I think the bigger picture is being able to support more women and girls with things like self-esteem and confidence issues, all the things that I wish I'd known [more about] when I was a teenager.
“All the extra pressure that are on girls these days around image, social media and God knows what else I didn't have to cope with as a 15 year-old. My daughters are ten and eight, and my oldest is off to secondary school next year, so I dread to think what she's going to walk into.”
Fundraising and the “sisterhood”
Alongside advocating for women’s issues, Bond has been embracing the fundraising side of pageantry and has already raised over £500 for Wellbeing of Women when she was the UK's National Ms Hampshire earlier this year.
“The best part of pageantry is being able to raise money and awareness for charitable causes. Everyone talks about it as a beauty contest, but I forget about that side of it because all the community work is just such a big part of it.”
For Miss Great Britain, Bond has chosen to raise money for Cancer Research UK and Alex's Wish, a charity focused on treatment of Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy.
Bond has created a pin for people to buy and wear and is also piloting a walking app that tracks your daily steps that then donates money to your chosen causes.
“It doesn't cost the user anything to do so you're basically generating charitable funds for nothing.”
Most importantly for Bond, pageantry has offered her a new community she describes as a “sisterhood” and loves the “big network of women who want to support each other”.
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Bond admits it’s “tricky” to manage being a mother, working in pharmacy and pursuing pageantry, but her passion for it doesn’t make it “feel like a huge burden” and she wants to bring more pageantry to Hampshire.
“We don't have a local heat like Manchester, Kent, London or Surrey. So, I quite like the idea of developing a heat in Hampshire.
“It’s life changing. I think it's really cliché to say that it's not the winning, it's taking part. But I think if you just focus on “I want to get that crown”, you've completely missed the point. It's about all the people that you meet.”
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