I must be Miss Liverpool!

I must be Miss Liverpool!

We are seated, lined up, eventually at the final of Miss Liverpool. The seats of the room arched around, judges desks empty for now. They have demobbed to a side room, making the final, ultimate, life-changing decision.

I must be Miss Liverpool!

It’s taken me four years to get here, I am twenty-two now, applying since eighteen, each time getting a little further, this time to the final. The extra cash borrowed for botox being the bar heightener. Four years of casual work to fund; hair, make-up, nails, extensions, tanning, designer brand gear and finally botox.

I must be Miss Liverpool!

When Daniel Lloyd won it she really became someone. She got Miss Liverpool, Miss GB and even got put in the Miss World contest. She did FHM, Playboy and even bagged the Face of Ladbrooks. She should have won Celebrity Big Brother, if it hadn’t been for that Shilpa ‘Shitty’. And then after having three kids with Jamie O’Hara, I bet the divorce settlement was massive. That’s want I want, a line of footballing boyfriends to make me the ultimate WAG.

I must be Miss Liverpool!

Then there was that Christine that got married to Paddy McGuinness, she was only eighteen and him in his forties. I wouldn’t mind being with an older fella if you got all his money and the celebrity lifestyle. She even got to go on ‘The Real Housewives of Cheshire’.

I must be Miss Liverpool!

Lots of the winners get signed by Impact modelling agency. There the best glamour agency around, on your page you model in just your bra and knickers and they list your vital statistics. Image, everyone who wants looking at you, men wanting you and women wanting to be you.

The judges are coming now, I look down and chant:

I must be Miss Liverpool!

Through my teeth, I repeat the words as the third then second placed are revealed. This is my last chance, I will be too old next year at twenty-three.
I must be Miss Liverpool.

I recoil as the winner is read out. No, not her, barely eighteen, a bookworm at college, a bore. Actually looks like she let her hair dry naturally and it’s not straightened or dyed or anything. Her heals are only three inches high and that’s not even a designer dress. I cannot believe it, with the title she wants to go the Alder Hey and visit the cancer ward as she has promised her Aunty who is a nurse there, ridiculous!

No night club openings, no botox, no boob job, simply visiting boring sick kids. What could have been, I could have been a leading WAG, I could have had my own line of product, gone on ‘Celebrity Love Island’, I could have married a footballer…. I could have had another boob job….I could of had a maximum divorce settlement.

I will never be anyone!

‘I must be Miss Liverpool’ is a flash fiction works from Alison Little. It was performed at the The Athenaeum as part of the Light Night 2019 festival.

More about Light Night

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Nicknames

Love them or hate them!

A sense of endearment or a form of mockery?

I look back through mine, first, there was ‘Ali’ from ‘Alison’, an obvious shortening first used by my elder brother who was struggling to pronounce my full name.

On a week in Ross and Wye with my Primary School class lead to being named ‘Barbie’, this was due to my proportionally long legs and a kind of scissor step I carried out in the dormitory. At the time I didn’t mind but now I am glad it is firmly in the past mainly due to the frequent comments I make about ‘Barbie being an airhead’ and my loathing of the use of bleach-blond hair dye.

My Uni days were the source of many a great nickname. In my first year, I was ‘Dougal’, my frizzing red hair being the origin of the name. This was celebrated by the purchasing of a soft toy Dougal bag and giving him a piercing to match my own. ‘Chemical-Ali’ was to follow, this was due to my undergrad dabbling with party narcotics and not any connection to Ikeda. Again, rhythmic chanting took over and in my final year I was christened ‘Scally-Ali-Oh’, which was eventually shortened to ‘Scals’.

My first role after graduating lead to being dubbed ‘Chewy’, due to my ability to chew every Biro in the office, I habitual I still partake in on occasions.

On moving to Liverpool my Southern accent combined with my sophistication when smoking cigarettes entitled me ‘Penelope Pit stop’. I cherished this immensely as she was one of my favourite cartoon characters as a youngster.

Now, I want to return to the school yard and the period of adolescence. When children become adults, when nicknames can be loathed but equally loved. My massive mop of wild red hair crowned me ‘Birds Nest’. We had some standard names which every school has, Montgomery became ‘Monty’, an extremely popular Kevin ‘Bell-End’. The girls matched these with a ‘McScab’ and a ‘Sticky-Vicky’ a few years above. One of the boys in my form group had unusual grey toned hair for a teenager, this resulted in ‘Just for Men’ being procrastinated in his vicinity. The wearing of non-uniform for six form brought in new opportunities, GI Jane being assigned to one of the lads after wearing a desert combat jacket not long after the film was released.

The ultimate nickname from secondary school was given to a large Asian boy named Bhatti. He had spent his first few years in the shadows and keeping to himself, remaining fairly anonymous. Then, the mid-nineties phenomena; Ali G took to our TV screens, his school days changed forever. Anonymity no more, when he walked across the canteen or the school yard crowds would part and someone would shout ‘Batty Boy!’ This was a great source of amusement for all including himself.

So did you love them or hate them?

Were they despised at the time, but on looking back do you laugh?

I enjoyed mine, the illustration above shows ‘Birds nest’ in full glory!

Fun and Frollicks
Youthfulness
And whatever happened to Bhatti?