'Pageants are about more than just pretty dresses'

Three sisters are set to use an international beauty pageant in the United States to raise awareness of issues close to them.

Grace Steeley, 17, Bella Gledhill, 12, and Millie Gledhill, 10, from York, have followed in the footsteps of their mother, Tracie Steeley, who took up pageantry after being diagnosed with breast cancer.

After each winning a title and dozens of trophies in the UK, the girls will travel to Orlando in June to compete in the Pure International Pageant, and to promote their own "community impact project".

Bella, whose project is to provide care packages to kids whose parents have cancer, said: "I had the packages when I was struggling with Mum."

She told BBC Radio York: "Growing up, it wasn't easy to do things that other children did.

"Most of the time it was only me, Mum, the girls and my older brother; it was really tricky."

Grace, who is autistic and whose project is to promote circus skills to help other girls with autism, said most of her friends had been made through pageantry.

She added: "You don't go into pageantry just because the dresses are pretty."

Grace said she fought for years to get her diagnosis and, as a result, did not have the support she needed when she was in mainstream school.

"I want to make sure that other girls do get that support," she said.

"I started circus because it calmed me down and now it's 10 years down the line, I'm still performing and it makes me happy."

Ms Steeley said she had four children under 10 when she was first diagnosed with breast cancer and underwent a double mastectomy and chemotherapy. She is currently awaiting an operation to remove another tumour in her leg.

She said she was surprised to have been diagnosed so young, at the age of 34, and got into pageantry as a way to encourage others to be proactive about their breast health.

She added: "This is a whole community of people who I can go to and say 'do you know you've got to be checking your breasts?

"Even the smallest thing you do can make a wide-ranging difference."

Ms Steeley said doing the pageants with her daughters had been a special bonding experience.

"We don't know what the future holds, and we know it won't necessarily be a particularly long future, but we can go out and do these things and have the beautiful photos and memories."

Listen to highlights from North Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.