profile
by Frankie Hatton
Dominique Martinez with her lovely little grandaughter
Dominique’s Days
The fabulous success of Kaiane Aldorino did more for this little piece of planet Earth than any number of visits to the UN or lobbying around the body politic. You can be sure that those countries not too ‘high and mighty’ to watch beauty pageants, which probably means most of the world to be fair, will all be thinking where is this country in Europe that produces such stunning women? That things have changed for Kaiane is obvious but things here too are expected to change. Finally we wait for the bounty that were it not for a twist of political correctness we may have had 24 years earlier. In 1986 another young lady from Gibraltar, having won a special award for ‘personality’ in the Miss World pageant and scoring enough points to make the grade was set to take her place in Gibraltar history. Unfortunately she says that twist meant the finals had to have the ‘right’ blend of nationalities and Dominique Martinez was to miss
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out on her semi-final place and a shot at the title. “That’s life,” she says. “I still believe I took full advantage of my time as Miss Gibraltar and the travel that came from it representing Gibraltar around the world.” She sounds very down to earth, particularly for someone who shared a stage with Halle Berry
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who was Miss USA at the time. “Ha, I still have the autograph!” she laughed. A third generation Gibraltarian, Dominique, was actually born in Paddington, London. Her family travelled and lived fairly comfortably for a long period of her life. She spent time in private schools in UK and Morocco following her
I figured the best way to meet people and get to know people was to muck in and that’s what I did
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father ’s work before eventually settling in Mallorca of all places. Her father constantly being away led to some personal family issues so her parents separated. Mother and brothers left Mallorca heading for Gibraltar leaving Dominique behind, as she wanted, settled and working. After a while her brother kept asking for her to follow them and be with the family, Dominique finally gave in and went ‘home’. This single decision totally changed the course of her life some for the better and no doubt some for the worse. The family were struggling financially so she went out to work in a hotel off Main Street near the old Barrelhouse pub and then at the Rock Hotel. “Being near the Barrelhouse was horrible,” she said. “The cockroaches were huge and it was just filthy around there but the work in the Hotel Montarik was a necessity and a stepping stone. I much preferred my job at the Rock, much more my style of work and later moving to a travel agent which was much more in line with the tourist work I had aimed for in Mallorca. “How did you find moving back to a place where, though you had family, you were more or less a stranger to?” I asked. “It was very difficult. I had been to St Mary’s First school for a while and knew a few cousins but integration was hard. I remember we used to see all the teenagers hanging around outside the cathedral, so one day I took my brother along and we sat there with them. No one really said anything but eventually they all got up to leave so we followed them. That’s when we found out about the afternoon disco at the casino and other stuff that went on, and that’s how we started to get accepted. “Having travelled I had a confidence about me to just get on and make things happen. It was this that made me apply to be in the Miss Gibraltar pageant. I figured the best way to meet people and get to know people was to muck in and that’s what I did. I even had to get out the family papers to prove I was truly Gibraltarian before I could enter. “So in ’86 I became Miss Gibraltar. The Miss World contest was at the Royal Albert Hall in London and the swimwear rounds took place in Hong Kong and Macau. We were all starving because we had no idea what the food was as it was all chopped up into small pieces. Someone told us the reason there were no dogs on the streets was because they we used as food! Well you can imagine how we felt; no one would eat anything we didn’t recognise.
GIBRALTAR MAGAZINE • FEBRUARY 2010