But this wasn’t any ordinary woman, this was Rosemarie Frankland who, three years earlier in 1961, became the first British woman to win Miss World, aged just 18. Rosemarie’s win was well covered by the Lancaster Guardian and in November 1961, just hours after she was crowned in London, a reporter snatched an interview with the city’s newest celebrity while she was staying in a luxury London hotel. “Lancaster’s Miss World picked up the receiver, yawned and told a Guardian reporter: ‘I am so tired and longing to get back home.
’” Asked about rumours that she had been due to marry before entering the contest, Rosemarie said: “I am not engaged. Even if I wanted to get married, my mother wouldn’t let me.” And she denied she would be going on a shopping spree with her £6,000 prize money.
“So many plans are being made, I am in a whirl,” Rosemarie said. “I think I’m going to America to take part in a Bob Hope television programme and could be in America for Christmas although I would love to be home with my family who I’ve seen so little of lately.” Just a couple of days later, Rosemarie did see her family again when she arrived back in Lancaster looking ‘as fresh and glamorous as at the moment of her crowning’.
Rosemarie told the Guardian: “I am so glad to be home. I might get a little rest but I then my plans are uncertain but I know there is pressure of work ahead.” But this work was very different from that she had left behind.
Among pho.