TODAY at Looking Back we're privileged to be sharing the memories of Betty Curtis (nee Roffe), beauty queen and remarkable woman.

Betty, now 88, has led an extraordinary life during which she brought the glamour factor to Weymouth and became a mother at the age of 45.

As a youngster Betty was the first winner of Miss Weymouth, then known as the Bathing Beauty Contest, after the Second World War in 1947.

She scooped the title as an 18-year-old in front of 3,000 spectators.

Betty, who lived at Upper St Alban Street, Weymouth, at the time, ended up living in the town completely by chance after being sent to Weymouth as an evacuee in the war.

She and her family developed a love for seaside life and ended up moving to Weymouth.

"It was my mother who was the one who was pushing me to enter beauty contests," Betty said. "She wanted me to do them and in those days you did what your mother told you to. I wasn't keen to go in for them, it was my mum and sister who were interested.

"When it was announced that I was the winner, I couldn't believe it. I really didn't think I was going to win because the other girls were so nice looking. It was a complete surprise."

Betty was given £30 for winning the contest and was selected out of eight competitors who were in the final. In second place was Bridget Rodd, aged 17, of Carlton Road South in Weymouth, and in third was Marie Munro, aged 17, of Waterloo Place. BBC announcer Frank Philips came from London to act as compere and chairman of an independent panel of six judges. On the panel was a 'beauty expert' and a 'dress stylist'.

The Dorset Daily Echo report on the contest says: "To a background of soft music played by Waldini and his Gypsy Band the bathing belles paraded as a group and then individually on a raised dias in the centre of the dance floor. Some wore attractive swimming costumes and others sun suits of varying hues."

Another competitor in the final was Diana Churchman of Weymouth.

Before winning the competition, in 1946 Betty was chosen as Victory Queen at a dance at the Sidney Hall in Weymouth and went on to the final at the Boscombe Hippodrome.

After the Bathing Beauty contest Betty became a Daily Express Holiday Girl. She would walk up and down the promenade wearing a golden sash over a bright coral-coloured outfit and would give £2 to anyone who would show her a copy of the Daily Express and answer a question correctly in that day's edition of the paper.

Betty went on to meet her husband Maurice, now 88, when she worked at an ironmonger's at the bottom of St Alban's Street. The pair got married in 1950 and celebrated their 67th wedding anniversary this year.

Continuing her love of entertaining, Betty went on to appear in a black and white minstrel show and would perform with Weymouth Operatic Society.

Thinking she would never have a child, she was surprised when, at the age of 45, she went to the doctor with stomach pains and discovered she was pregnant with son Lee.

Betty said: "When we lived at High West Street a woman knocked on my door selling heather. She said she had a vision of a baby dressed in blue with very fair hair. How she knew I would be expecting I have no idea."

Lee got married last year and Betty said she wouldn't change a thing about her life.

"I've led a really happy life and everything I've done has been with the support of Maurice. I couldn't have done it without his encouragement."

Thanks to Betty and Maurice for sharing these memories.