London: Charlotte Holmes has an unlikely hero to thank for her new reign as Miss England – telly professor Robert Winston. She would not be here without the doctor, who accepted her parents on his pioneering IVF programme when they were desperate for a child.
The model, 23, said: “I think I’m the first Miss England Professor Winston has made, and I’d love to meet him now.“I watch all his TV documentaries, I think he’s a fascinating and inspirational man, just an incredible human being.”
Professor Winston, whose BBC series include The Human Body and Child Of Our Time, treated her parents Vonny and Ken in 1988 when IVF was still in its trials phase.It was just ten years after he had been on the team which created the first test tube baby, Louise Brown.
Vonny, now 60, fell pregnant after the first treatment at the professor’s clinic in London’s Hammersmith hospital and then had Charlotte. Eighteen months later her sister Lucy followed.
Charlotte, who flies to China next week to compete in Miss World, said: “I’ve always known that I was a test tube baby. When I was younger I just thought it sounded quite cool.
“But now I have friends who are starting to have children I can begin to understand what Mum and Dad must have been through.
“For eight years they had endured invasive tests and horrible operations and before they met Professor Winston nothing had worked.”
Ken, 64, who runs an IT business, recalled: “I can remember Vonny and I thinking we were very lucky to be taken on to the trial because we were quite old by then, and only one in five of the couples the team saw were suitable.
“We felt it was our last chance to become parents.”
He added: “The doctors and nurses were very good at telling us what was going on. We even have a picture of Charlotte as an embryo of just four cells, after the egg was fertilised on a lab slide. It’s not something most parents would ever get to see.
“When she was born we were overjoyed. We attended a few of the reunion garden parties held by the clinic when the girls were little. They met the professor then but they were too young to remember it.”
Charlotte, of Plymouth, Devon, won the Miss England crown two weeks ago and is still in shock.
She said: “When they called my name out I couldn’t believe it. I was astonished as I never thought I would win.”
And she has also been amazed by the many people since her win to have told her she looks like the Duchess of Cambridge.
Charlotte said: “I have never seen it but a few people have mentioned it since the final and said I looked like Kate in the pictures.
“Its a massive compliment — Kate is so beautiful and a real style icon. Her wedding dress was just gorgeous.”
Charlotte’s pageant win comes two years after she came fourth in the sixth series of Sky Living’s Britain’s Next Top Model.
She said: “I had a great time on the show and met some great people.
“I just missed out on the final but I’m not one to dwell on things so it was onwards and upwards after the show finished.”
Charlotte has already completed her first Miss England modelling assignment, in Mauritius, and is now getting ready to travel to China’s Inner Mongolia for Miss World. She will be battling 119 others for the crown.
She said: “Winning Miss England is a great opportunity to travel the world, but I’m also really looking forward to the year ahead and getting to meet people from all round the country. It’s very exciting.”
Ken added: “We’re so proud of both our daughters, we’ve always felt that they were very special kids.“Professor Winston gave us the greatest gift we could ever have imagined.”
Source: The Sun.co.uk, By Jenna Sloan
