A size 14-16 with a 36E bust, Vicky Klimczak may seem an unlikely contender for the county's first beauty pageant, but she made it through to the final 10 of Miss Staffordshire 2009. Here, she tells Tamzin Hindmarch why she wanted to make a stand for curvy women everywhere.

AMONG all the stunning, slender models who were in the running for the Miss Staffordshire 2009 title, Vicky Klimczak stood out.

Size 14 on the bottom and 16 on top, with a 36E bust, she narrowly missed out on the crown, which went to Newcastle student Emma Machin, who will now go through to the Miss England semi-final.

Newcastle College student Vicky, who is 5ft 7ins and graduates from her beauty course this summer, has had her fair share of knocks as a result of having a body that doesn't comply with the conventional idea of the modelling industry's perfect female form.

And she's certainly nowhere near the controversial super-skinny frame of a size 0 catwalk model.

She is, however, at ease with her shape and size today, and except for the occasional moments of self-doubt that linger from her past, she's happy with her feminine curves.

Originally from May Bank, Vicky moved to Basford where she now lives in Curzon Street with her parents Andrew and Fiona.

Growing up alongside her big brother Adam, now 23, the 19-year-old says she made many friends while attending May Bank Infants School and St Margaret's Junior School.

But a combination of hitting puberty early, in her final year at primary school, and finding herself among strangers when she began secondary school at Wolstanton High, soon cast a shadow over her, until then, happy childhood.

"My hormones kicked in when I was 10," she recalls, "and I was the first in my year to start growing. My body was changing and others didn't understand why, but because most of them had known me all my life, it didn't matter to them."

By the time she began secondary school, already wearing her first bra, however, problems were already brewing for Vicky.

"I was a lot bigger in the bust department and my tummy became a bit rounder as well, and people began staring," she recalls. "It seemed as if everyone else was still enjoying their childhood, and I felt different from them.

"I'd had a lovely upbringing, but my childhood personality – the slim little girl who was very outgoing and always running around laughing – had disappeared and I became shy and introverted."

That's when the teasing began. She says: "I'd be called fat or Michelin Girl. Sometimes, I would sit there quietly and try to ignore it. Other times I would run out of the classroom crying. I just couldn't stand it."

Fortunately, when Vicky was aged 14 and already a bra size "36D, going on for DD", her first proper boyfriend taught her to look at her developing body from a different perspective.

"By that stage, I'd begun straightening my hair and putting blonde streaks in it like other girls, and as I began to make more effort my confidence grew too, and then I met my first boyfriend," says Vicky.

"It gave me quite a boost, because he would call me gorgeous and lovely and really pretty, and all these tiny compliments made my day. Of course, your mum and dad will say you are beautiful and that everyone will want to go out with you, but at that age it's not the same."

Laughing as she looks back at all the other revamps she underwent – undoing the top two buttons of her uniform blouse, wearing her school tie loose, and swapping trousers for a skirt – Vicky says she also soon began to understand what makes someone a bully.

"There were still girls teasing me and calling me fat, but then something inside me snapped," she remembers. "I realised that by then they had grown up too and were the same size as me. Now I always say if someone isn't nice about your body, it's because they are self-conscious about their own."

Learning from her experiences, Vicky left school bursting with confidence – only to have it knocked out of her again by a different boyfriend.

"He put me down something rotten. He was toned and muscular and always made me feel like I had to lose weight and had to be perfect for him," she recalls.

"I tried everything – the Cabbage Soup Diet, The Atkins Diet, three bowls of cereal a day and water, and even one where I only drank smoothies. But they didn't work. They made me feel sick, I had no energy, I felt dizzy, and I was falling behind with my college work because I was spending so much time off because I was ill. Of course, my mum and dad didn't know because I didn't tell them what I was doing.

"The bubbly, happy, person I had become slipped away and I climbed back into my shell again."

The pair went their separate ways, but again, Vicky bounced back. Three years later, she says she is again feeling confident about herself which is why she decided to enter the Miss Staffordshire 2009 competition, and raise the debate as to what makes a woman beautiful.

"If I'd won, I would have been amazed," she says, "and it would have given me even more of a chance to show everybody that you don't have to be slim to be beautiful, or to get somewhere in life.

"I am a bit gutted," she adds, "but I have no hard feelings towards the other girls. I know some of them would like to become models and, if that's the case, they should really go for it."

Today, feeling fortunate to have such a loving family and now in a happy relationship with 22-year-old boyfriend Callum Keeling, she says: "There are still times when I've been watching something on television and I'll say that I'm going to start a diet on Monday morning, but Callum will always tell me I'm gorgeous as I am and he wouldn't want me to change – and he's right.

"My bust and the rest of my body has helped make me who I am – this bubbly, fun-loving woman who is smiling all the time."

She continues: "The women we strive to be like on television and in the magazines have perfect figures, hair extensions, and make-up plastered all over them. But a real woman is not about that. She can be a size 10 naturally, or a size 22 or 24, and I think that's all right.

"You can't try to be like Jennifer Lopez or Kate Moss – you should just be you. There are times I could die for Kate Moss's figure because she's stunning, but then I think about all the curves and my hips, and I actually rather like them."