WATCH: How Miss Tameside turned adversity into achievement

From being bed-bound to cycling 30 miles around Tameside, Alexandra Taylor has defied all odds in her latest mission to raise funds to better the lives of others.

On April 10, Alexandra battled the turbulent weather for six hours, facing the brutal rain, snow and blizzards to collect £600 for the Miss World charity, ‘Beauty With A Purpose’. However, the bizarre and tough conditions weren’t the only adversites that she encountered during this.

At the age of 14, Alexandra suddenly found herself suffering from intense joint flare-ups, often leaving her unable to even mobilise her body.

"I was in the hospital four days a week. I was bed-bound- I couldn’t walk and I couldn’t go to school," she says.

Alexandra was left for 18 months without a diagnosis, resulting in her losing all her friends and forcing her mum to quit her job to become her full-time carer.

"I was misdiagnosed for 18 months and no-one knew what was wrong with me, I was left for so long without a diagnosis and it just made my condition progressively worsen".

Eventually she was found to have rheumatoid arthritis, a long-term autoimmune disease that causes pain, swelling and stiffness in the joints.

"When I was given my diagnosis, I could then start treatment and things began to change," Alexandra says.

Undergoing intense physiotherapy, the 23-year-old challenged herself daily in order to finally regain her power to walk. Alexandra says she still has ‘good days and bad days’ and everyday brings a potentially new test for her.

"Some days I can be shopping, and someone would see me and they wouldn’t think twice that I was disabled or that I had a disability. But, on other days when I’m really bad, I can’t even get out of bed, I have flare-ups in my joints and I just can’t move’," she explains.

Alexandra is the current Miss Tameside after receiving over 70,000 online votes in the Miss England finals. Using this title to do all that she can to help the lives of others, she had been searching for a way to raise as much money as possible.

"I’ve always wanted to raise money but with my arthritis I found it very difficult because I couldn’t do a sponsored run or anything like that but I’m really glad that I found a way to adapt".

Enlisting the help of her partner Joe Womersley, the pair decided to embark on a 30-mile bike ride across 6 Tameside towns. With the help of charitable organisation Cycling Projects, Alexandra was provided with a disabled friendly bike, empowering her to partake in the event.

She says she ‘couldn’t believe the generosity of the people of Tameside' and was ‘amazed' at just how supportive everyone was.

"I had people coming over to me, stopping me in the streets and getting out of their cars to donate. I haven’t been on a bike for 10 years since I was diagnosed so the fact that this all could happen was amazing," she says.

As part of her Miss England campaign, Alexandra has raised these funds for Beauty With A Purpose, a charity which helps sick and disadvantaged children worldwide and offers them a better start in life.

Alongside this, she is campaigning to rewrite the stigma around her arthritis after she was tormented as a young girl for having an ‘old persons disease’.

"I’m creating a video to spread awareness about rheumatoid arthritis, and I’ve had 500 people who also have it reach out to be involved and we really want to reveal the truth behind the misconceptions," she says.

As a child she hid her condition from all her friends and the thought of this for another child is unbearable for Alexandra.

"I think it’s extremely important to spread awareness of this disease especially for younger people because often people stigmatise it as something elderly people get which isn’t the case," she says.

With the Miss England final rapidly approaching in June, Alexandra Taylor is committed to representing her title and the local area, striving to do what she can to benefit the wider world.

Video courtesy of YourTameside

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