By Sarah Newstead

Last updated 09:14, Friday, 26 September 2008

Former beauty queen Annie Burgamy is back home in Cumbria after a globetrotting life on the high seas.

Annie Burgamy

• Slideshow: more photos of Annie Burgamy and Miss Border contest

But it took the breakdown of Annie’s second marriage to an American to bring her back.

Now living with her sister at Orton Grange, Annie is happy to be home again.

As a young Miss Border TV 1968 and farmer’s daughter, Annie could only dream of her exotic future which included: being whisked half way round the world crewing a millionaire’s yacht, living in a beach hut in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean and setting up home in Florida’s balmy Palm Springs.

Annie, now 59, was the eldest of six children and grew up Annie Lowes at High Hall Cottage, Westward, close toWigton.

But even as a young child she knew her destiny would see her travel to foreign climes.

“My mother would be calling for me and I would be in a field near the house in the long grass – I remember one day I was lying there and I saw a flash of metal up in the sky.

“It was an aeroplane and I thought ‘One day I’m going to leave here in one of those’.”

Some years later, aged 20, Annie scooped the title of Miss Border TV after friends put in an application on her behalf.

“It was great fun. The girls were great, it was not like these bitchy shows you see.”

Fellow contestants helped show Annie the ropes.

“I was just this kid from Caldbeck, I did not have a clue. I knew nothing about fake tan and push-up bras, I grew up in the country.”

Annie stole the show along with fellow winner, Carol Shaw, of Whitehaven.

The girls were Cumbrian celebrities, opening fetes, appearing in the Miss Great Britain finals and on TV as Border’s representatives.

But after her first marriage to local lad Ian Scott broke down after several years, a 30-year-old Annie began to dream again of bluer skies.

“I lived in Workington then I moved down to Yorkshire. I was working there in the Co-op and it was freezing cold and snowing – I thought I can’t do this any more.

“Then a man called John Olsen who knew my boyfriend at the time, Brian Farrow, just knocked on our door and said he had this yacht, did we want to join him as crew?”

Aboard the Okere, Annie and Brian, a renowned folk musician, travelled the globe catching fish from the deck and crewing for millionaires for five years.

She then lived for three years in a beach hut on the Turks and Caicos Islands.

“I varnished boats for a living and helped a friend set up a school in return for fish and bread. I was a bit of a bum, but it was a nice existence.”

Annie’s life took another transatlantic turn when she met her second husband.

She gave up her idyllic beach existence and moved to Rex’s home state of Florida.

Here she spent a happy 24 years basking in the sunshine, working as an artist and for several charities.

But when her marriage became unworkable, Annie felt Cumbria calling.

Now living with her sister Joan Turner, Annie is keen to settle back into home turf although the adjustments have been tough.

“I’ve been gone so long I don’t have too many contacts any more and it takes time.

“I find the British people quite conservative compared to Americans. Also, the weather... I’ve come from 12 hours of sunshine!”

But with art and writing projects on the boil and elderberry wine brewing in the kitchen, Annie is glad to be home.

If you were in the Miss Border TV competition along with Annie and would like to join in with a reunion, email her at boltenwoodlane@yahoo.com