[Sarah Singleton | Swindon Advertiser]
“I want to help protect girls, to raise the standards in clubs so they don’t fall through the cracks… I was worried standards had dropped and women are being exploited.”
Beauty queen Christine Gregory is a woman with a mission – as Mrs Swindon British Empire, she wants to use her success to kickstart a local campaign educating young people on the dangers of sexual exploitation.
The former pole-dance fitness instructor and mother of four made it to the finals of the Miss British Empire beauty pageant, and won the Community Service Award.
Now she plans to use her skills and experiences to run a college course on modelling, and to educate aspiring models and young women working in lap-dancing clubs about ways to keep safe.
“I want to help protect girls, to raise the standards in clubs so they don’t fall through the cracks,” she says.
“I want to see security guards at the clubs trained in tackling sexual exploitation, and the girls to have a performance and entertainment licence to ensure they are fully trained and understand how to report any issues.”
Already Christine has met local MP Robert Buckland to raise her concerns about the safety and working conditions of women working in the adult entertainment industry.
“I told him I was worried standards had dropped and women are being exploited,” she says.
And why do the women simply walk away and get another job?
“I think it can be addictive. You get a rush of endorphins being on stage, getting the attention, and the money is relatively good. But some of the girls want to get out.”
Christine was herself a pole dancer in Swindon’s clubs, for six months in 2005 but she did not enjoy the experience.
“I was not treated nicely – I was bullied by the management and staff,” she says.
Most pole dancers she has spoken too are self-employed. Although she does not want to campaign for pole dancing clubs to be banned – “you can’t destroy it, it would just go underground” – she does want more protections for people working in the industry.
Her experiences in the clubs inspired her to set up a business training people to pole dance for fitness, called Polefect, in a London Road studio, which operated for 13 years.
“I wanted to show people a different way of using the pole,” she explains.