Seventy Years After Winning Miss England, Pretty From The Outside By Margaret Rowe Is The Captivating Memoir Of A War Evacuee’s Remarkable Journey

On The Table Read Magazine, “the best arts and entertainment magazine UK“, Pretty From The Outside is Margaret Rowe’s captivating memoir chronicling her remarkable journey from a wartime-evacuated child in bombed-out London to her crowning as Miss England 1955.

Pretty From The Outside

In 2025, seventy years after Margaret Rowe was crowned Miss England 1955, her autobiography Pretty from the Outside: The Autobiography of Miss England 1955 was published, offering an intimate and evocative portrait of one woman’s extraordinary life.

The memoir traces her path from the hardships of a wartime childhood to the glittering stages of international beauty pageants, capturing the resilience, optimism, and sophistication of post-war Britain with remarkable authenticity.

A Childhood Shaped by War and Evacuation

Born in 1935 as the shadow of World War II loomed, Margaret’s early years were defined by abandonment and upheaval. After her mother left the family, she was placed in Miss Berryman’s Home for Children. With the outbreak of war and the Blitz devastating London, young Margaret was evacuated to the Cotswolds countryside.

There she found temporary homes with kind foster families, including the Hope family at Longfords Mill and the Hankins family farm. These rural years brought stability and unexpected joys—helping with harvests, racing down steep hills, and listening to Winston Churchill’s stirring speeches on the crackling wireless. Margaret’s vivid recollections paint a tender picture of a child discovering wonder and quiet strength amid national crisis.

Adolescence Under Shadow and Reunion with Hope

Margaret’s teenage years were complicated by a difficult relationship with her father, a painter-decorator who had converted to Pentecostalism. His increasingly erratic behaviour and emotional abuse cast a long shadow, yet she excelled at school and nurtured a deep love of literature, poetry—especially Wordsworth—and the magic of cinema.

In 1951, a life-changing reunion with her mother brought warmth and humour into Margaret’s world for the first time. Moving to Berkhamsted, she experienced genuine family life while working modest jobs as a chambermaid and waitress, quietly dreaming of something greater.

Breaking into the Glamorous World of 1950s Modelling

Determined to chase her ambitions, Margaret moved to London and began as a waitress at the prestigious Cumberland Hotel. She persevered through countless rejections to break into the fashion industry, posing for high-end shows and artistic photography in an era when modelling could be both dazzling and demanding.

Under the mentorship of legendary photographer Gordon Hireson, she honed her craft and embraced the evolving style of the decade. Her treasured eau-de-nil Christian Dior coat—“designed with me in mind, of that I’m certain”—and the shift from wartime utility clothing to voluminous swirling skirts and spindly four-inch stilettos became powerful symbols of her personal transformation.

Triumph at Miss England 1955

The memoir reaches its emotional crescendo with the Miss England 1955 competition at the Lyceum Theatre Ballroom. Entering nervously as number fourteen, Margaret emerged victorious, winning the crown and the opportunity to represent England at the Miss Universe pageant in Long Beach, California. She advanced to the semi-finals and was awarded the “Most Popular Girl in the Parade” trophy.

The journey that followed was thrilling: dining with Elizabeth Taylor at Claridge’s, cruising the French Riviera on luxury yachts, and mingling with celebrities such as Sean Connery and Shirley Bassey in the jet-set world of Monte Carlo and the Côte d’Azur.

Margaret’s elegant prose, written in the authentic colloquial style of the 1950s, vividly recreates the era. She describes lingering food rationing, the dawn of consumer culture, the rise of Soho coffee bars, the arrival of television, and the fashion revolution sparked by Christian Dior’s “New Look.” Her observations offer a rich social history of a nation emerging from war into optimism and modernity.

Resilience, Beauty, and Self-Discovery

What makes Pretty from the Outside truly compelling is Margaret’s unflinching honesty. She refuses to romanticise her story or cast herself merely as a victim of circumstance. Instead, she celebrates inner strength, confidence, and the quiet determination that carried her forward. Her lifelong love of beauty—in nature, poetry, and high fashion—shines through every page.

After her pageant days, Margaret continued a successful modelling career with London’s top agencies before retiring to pursue nature photography. She won a national competition, and her exquisite flower photographs were listed with Getty Images.

A Lasting Legacy

Margaret Rowe (1935–2024) completed this memoir as her final testament, a gift to readers who cherish authentic voices from Britain’s post-war era. She passed away in September 2024, but her words preserve a vanished world of wartime courage, post-war hope, and 1950s elegance.

Pretty from the Outside offers:

• An authentic child’s-eye view of wartime evacuation
• Rare behind-the-scenes insights into 1950s modelling and beauty pageants
• Rich portraits of post-war British social history
• Memorable encounters with luminaries like Elizabeth Taylor
• A heartfelt tribute to Christian Dior and mid-century fashion
• Profound reflections on resilience, identity, and personal transformation

Seventy years after she stood on the Lyceum stage and heard her name announced as Miss England 1955, Margaret Rowe’s journey—from war-evacuated child to internationally recognised beauty queen—remains an inspiring testament to determination, grace, and the pursuit of dreams in an era of profound change. True beauty, she reminds us, shines from within.

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