My Campaign & Me

When I was growing up I was never really a fan of make up, didn’t have a care about how my hair looked. In fact you can describe me as a tom boy. I loved all things sport. Football, rugby and netball where my sports of choice.

I always use to say to my grandparents, I’m never going to wear makeup! But turns out, as soon as I hit secondary school I began to experiment with it.

My Mam doesn’t really wear make up, the only time I would ever see her put it on was when she was going out to a special occasion, so it wasn’t something that ever interested me. I think that being surrounded by friends who were experimenting with their looks made me feel like maybe I should too, and I remember going over load on bright pink blusher and horrendous coloured eye liners.

I haven’t really been the most confident young girl in all honesty. I grew up in a small minded community where I was the only mixed raced child. Because of this I was constantly teased and bullied for being different. I hated who I was and craved to be someone else. I tried to cover my darker complexion with pale powders, but deep down I knew I was still the same, and other people still knew this and continued to bully me.

The older I got the more confidence I lost and I began having trouble with my eating. I hated myself that much I just wanted out.

The lack of confidence that I had back then had nothing to do with the beauty industry but it was more to do with the people I was surrounded by and their negativity.

As I grew older, let’s skip past most of my teens, maybe let’s say by the time I turned 19 and I was living in Manchester, I felt like a different person. I was much more confident and happy within myself, but I had different influencers that were denting my confidence, such as the advertising companies of the beauty industries.

I have realised the older that I have got, the more I have engaged with the beauty industry and the more it has played a part in my life. I don’t know why this is but this is what has seemed to have happened.

I think that the older that I have gotten the more I have begun to take notice of how much of an influence it has on my life. Beauty products are advertised in more or less every place I look. From the original magazines, TV’s, now to even my social media platforms, such as Instagram and Twitter. I again began eating less and lost quite a lot of weight on the run up to a girls holiday to Ibiza in 2009.

Looking back at some of the photos now from this time frame is quite scary because I look tiny, and right now people are always commenting on how petite I am now, so it scares me to think back to that period.

There was just something that kept nagging away at me, every time I read a magazine, every time I went online. I just never felt good enough.

Starting University was a turning point in my life. It removed me from toxic ‘friends’ that were encouraging this negativity and gave me a whole new level of confidence. For the first time in my life I felt genuinely accepted for being me. It was a nice feeling to know that no one was judging me, everyone seemed accepted here and cherished for their individuality and differences.

Since starting uni and moving into halls in first year, I can only say that my confidence has flourished. I have finally found it within myself to accept myself for myself and stop worrying and comparing myself to other people.

Sometimes you have to remove all the negativity from your life to truly realise how poisonous it was and to realise your own value.

Thanks to the fantastic friends that I have met at uni, I am finally happy and have learnt over the past 4 year to love myself for myself and bounce negativity away. I do things for myself now and not to conform to any current trends.

The experiences that I have had during my life time greatly affected my campaign and made me want to focus more on promoting body confidence as a whole instead of body shaming people for the choices that they make. I just wanted to encourage and inspire youngsters and people of all ages to love themselves for themselves, and I hope that this has shone through within my blog.

North/South Divide

I’m a Northerner. I’m Northern through and through, as some might say. I grew up in the Western Lake District and I have spent most of my life there, until I moved further down South to Manchester…..

I only recently ventured down South (London/Kingston Upon Thames) and it wasn’t because I don’t like Southerners or any other reason why I hadn’t been down South, it was only the fact I never really had a reason to go down.

I was blown away by the hustle and bustle of the busy bodies flitting around Victoria Station, I just felt so flustered. In particularly I HATED the tube, so many people rushing to jump onto the this rammed train, when there will be another one leaving in approximately 3 minutes. I just couldn’t understand what all the rushing was about?

Really dislike the tube. And rushing.

The funny thing is when I moved to Manchester my Auntie use to tell me how slow I was at everything that I was doing, but told me that in time I would adapt and I would become use to the speed and lifestyle in Manchester, but I never quite understood what she meant – as I felt like I was perfectly fine.

Going back home to the Lakes nowadays and I am constantly nagging my Sisters and my Mam to ‘hurry up’ and ‘get your skates on’ – they are so slow I feel like they are all stuck in slow motion. I really want to stick a rocket up there a$%*s! Everyone in Cumbria seems this way though, everyone is so laid back, not a care in the world. No rushing for anyone, plenty of time!

I think I am a quite open minded person, I love everyone as I am a people person. Love meeting new people and getting to know everything about them, regardless about where in the world they are from.

Recently I have become aware of how Southerners view us Northerners and I have noticed that this seems to be cemented by images they see across the media and television, and do you know what it’s really starting to infuriate me!

I never really believed much in this north/south divide. Coming from Cumbria and residing in Manchester for the past Five year I have never really felt it.

Spending a bit more time down South recently and I have noticed how Southern’s tend to make jokes about where I am from, how ‘shit’ the North is, and how they ‘would never move up there’ (even though, may I add, they have never actually been up here!) It has begun to anger me and make me really defensive about the North. I believe that the North is a beautiful place and despite it’s bad press and misrepresentation, it has a lot to offer.

Watching Bear Grylls The Mens Island this week and a class war seemed to break out between them. With one Northern gent in particular arguing that being from the North, you are brought up to do manual labour, and you grow up to do manly jobs and know how to make a living through ‘grafting’. He suggested that because one of the other camp mates was from down South, he was shying away from the manual work, taking on only the easy jobs because he’s never done a hard days graft in his life. He was suggesting that because this gent came from the South of England he wasn’t use to doing manual labour and was use to people doing things for him. The Northerner in question said the following during a heated discussion,

“Where I come from, we vote every four years for people who speak like you,” he said. “We put every last vestige of trust in that person, and then you dick on us every single time… so unfortunately, I can’t trust you.”

It seems to be dislike through association, viewing the Southerners accent as a marker of wealth and status – associating him with the likes of politicians.

I think it seems unfair to judge someone based on their accents. Yes, he may be well educated, and yes he may not have done much manual labour in his life, but he has still worked hard to gain a career. This is the first time I have ever witnessed first hand a Southerner getting singled out because of their Southern heritage. Normally I have witnessed it the other way round but to see this shocked me. I also noticed that once one of the Northerners said this, a few others also jumped on this band wagon, but maybe with not as much hostility.

The north of England always gets stick. We get shit documentaries made about us, to name a culprit ‘Benefit Street’ and if you have a look and see where other similar documentaries like this are filmed, bet you my bottom dollar it is the North (or the Valley’s, sorry Wales!) But I bet there is deprived areas of the South, why don’t they get any stick? And there is genuine reasons why some areas of the North are so deprived, but we need to stop being so small minded and painting everyone with the same brush.

At the end of the day regardless of our accents we are all still humans and deserve to be treat with the same amount of respect irrespective of where in the world we have been brought up. We wouldn’t dare discriminate against someone due to the colour of their skin nowadays, so why should be judge because of someone location or accent? It seems like we are going backwards to me.

Me, myself and I feel like that when I go down to London, people don’t tend to take me seriously because of my accent. I feel like this is always a point people like to take the piss out of, and guess what it is really grating on me. I want to scream ‘don’t undermine me because of my accent’ and maybe even stamp my feet a little bit. People don’t actually believe me when I list off my qualification and all that jazz, but why should I have to do that to be taken seriously?

The way that I feel when I leave the South makes me reluctant to going back as it’s draining having to prove my self worth and defend the whole of the North every time I make a visit.

The media and television programmes are too blame for this ever growing North/South divide and something needs to be done and this situation needs to be addressed before it get’s even more out of hand.

We are all the same and as one of the ladies on Benefit Street said the other day,

We all shit, piss and were born out of the same hole

So why aren’t we all treat equally? Nice little phrase, bet that one will stick with you.

A petition has even been made for the North of England to be part of Scotland!!!

More than 12,000 people have signed a petition demanding the north of England break away from the “London-centric south” and join a new Scotland.

The petition says the northern English cities “feel far greater affinity with their Scottish counterparts such as Glasgow and Edinburgh than with the ideologies of the London-centric south” and demands secession from the UK.

(The Guardian, 2015)

But my point is, this is out of hand now.

This make a change, change our attitude, get over this North/South divide and learn to love our Country as a whole.