Success in Milan

Sweet sixteen and I was looking forward to what was supposed to be the best year of my life. Modelling was the path i chose and after much messing about trying to get work, I was offered a contract abroad in one of the fashion capitals of the world, Milan. When I got the call, i could hardly control my excitment and to celebrate, I gathered together my older sister Deborah, her boyfriend and some of my closest friends and suggested we go away for a weekend as I wasn't going to see them for some time.

Loch Lomond was where i had spent most of my childhood as my parents owned a boat which they used to take up there every summer. We decided that a weekend camping at Inch Mirren on the Loch would be a good laugh. A couple of my mates owned jet-ski's and it was the perfect oppertunity to take them out for a spin on the waters of the bonny banks.

We set off on the trip three and a half weeks before my tour. When we got to our destination late friday afternoon, we set up the barbecue and had a meal. As the boys were pitching the tent, the rest of us decided to have a go on the jet-ski's. Everything was going fine until I plucked up the courage to have a go. It turned out to be one of the worst decisions I ever made.

I was doing ok for a while until the skies began to darken and without realising it, I hit a huge rock under the water, the impact threw me off the jet-ski and I was knocked out with the force. My sister and friends saw the accident and Deborahs boyfriend at the time Darren came running in the water to save me as I was lying face down on top of the water and not moving. I was unconscious but when I came round on the pebbled beach, my sister was panicking and saying 'What about her tour, she will never be able to go now.' It was then that I realised that not only was I black and blue from head to toe with horrific brusing, my front tooth had been fractured at the root and therefore came down slightly and punctured a massive hole in my bottom lip, to make matters worse, I had also sprained my ankle badly and I didn't think that a model with a limp would have gone down too well on the catwalks of Milan.

My chance had finally come to me and my dreams of becoming a model had been shattered. How on earth was I going to recover in the space of three weeks. I had to go to hospital to have stitches on my lip to repair it and after about a week I noticed that my tooth was appearing darker and darker so I had to go to the dentist to have it out and replaced with a plate which was extremely uncomfortable at first. The brusing got much worse before it got better, so I lost hope for my tour. I couldn't see this damage clearing up before my date to leave for Italy. My career was over before it had even began. I felt so down but my parents encouraged me to carry on with my dream to be a model.

I was amazed to see over the couple of weeks that followed, my injuries healed reasonably quick but to this day, I still have a little bump on my lip. The day came when I was due to go on my tour to Milan and I was relieved to hear that I would have to spend a fortnight in London staying at my aunt Helens before I went. It was more recovery time for me. Helen owned and agency called Smithies, she is the one who got me the contract abroad. I had to spend two weeks with her so she could get me in tip top condition to model. Helen taught me the in's and out's of the modelling industry and the types of people I would be dealing with.

I still had a black eye but Helen orginised a photo shoot so I would have some pictures to start off a professional portfolio. Some how the makeup artist covered up the brusing on my eye brilliantly and the pictures turned out great. I couldn't believe it, i was going to be a model after all.

Helen introduced me to a lovely girl called Syriah, ex girlfriend of Matt from the pop group Bros. Syriah was quite a bit older than me, she was 24 when i was 16. She was a professional model and she was assigned to take care of me during my trip to Milan as it was my first time travelling alone. Syriah and I had a ball together. In Milan, I ended up doing really well, I got constant work and had the time of my life. It was a lot of hard work and the lifestyle was glamourous for 95% of the time. In all I must have spent about a year away from home touring. Even when i returned, I had a snowstorm of work coming my way because of my refrences and all the work I had done in Milan. I look back and think how lucky I was that I had the chance to make my dreams come true. After all it could have been a lot worse.

However as I am a bit older, I realise that living life that can't last forever, so now I use my experiences and knowlege I have gained within the Modelling industry to help others who have the same dream I did all those years ago. Now it seems I am the agent, and I love it, I still do the odd shoot here and there, just to show my models I am still game. Modelling will always be a part of me and I have a lot of fond memories of those days but true happiness depends on whether you are around the people who you love and love you.