Snippets from Strangers

I was first scouted at the age of 14 by one of the world’s most prestigious model agencies. I was told that my life had now changed and had to be perfect: bikini waxes, leg waxes, lots of water, perfect skin and having to stay slim were all on the agenda. I had just about started my period by then. When I put on seven pounds to become a whopping seven and a half stone, it was commented on before I’d made it halfway through the office.

I did my first topless shoot a year later for a well-known photographer, and they were photographs that oozed sex. They will tell you that it wouldn’t happen in the UK, that it’s illegal; I would ask you not to be naive. My father shuddered and wept when he saw them in my model book by accident. He wanted nothing to do with it ever again. I quit modelling at 18 and went to university, tired of seeing my 15 and 16-year-old colleagues on Vogue front pages looking like they were all about sex, while overhearing men saying things I couldn’t repeat about girls I knew to be still awkward about kissing boys.