REBECCA Sharpe from Shebbear is celebrating after moving one step closer to a £10,000 cash prize in the 2017 Spectacle Wearer of the Year competition by winning the regional title.

The 21-year-old, who works as a bar maid in Okehampton’s White Hart Hotel, attended a prize giving at Specsavers Okehampton where she was awarded a certificate, bottle of champagne and £150 eyewear voucher.

Rebecca said: ‘The competition popped up on my Facebook page and I just thought that must be a sign so completed a last minute entry.

‘I started wearing glasses when I was 12-years-old so I could read at school. They were old fashioned grandma style ones with a gold chain so I didn’t lose them but that didn’t bother me.

‘I also had to wear a hearing aid and to be honest that was a problem as it wasn’t like the ones you get today which you can hide neatly behind your ears. Today I wear my glasses as often as I can, I love the big, bold round styles. I’m just so pleased I entered, I never win anything so to get this far is incredible!’

Karen Reader, Specsavers Okehampton store director, said: ‘Congratulations to Rebecca. She has such a lovely, bubbly personality, a fantastic ambassador for specs wearers everywhere!’

Rebecca is one of thousands of proud glasses wearers from every corner of the UK and Ireland who entered this year’s event by sending in a ‘specs selfies’.

The competition, which has been running for the last 22 years, aims to celebrate wearing glasses with pride and every entry raises £1 for UK anti-bullying children’s charity, Kidscape. To date, more than £400,000 has been raised for the charity. 

The five age categories of 16 to 24, 25 to 34, 35 to 44, 45 to 59 and over 60s, plus a Facebook favourite voted for by the public, has given the judges a fantastic insight into the country’s specs style and the response from the public has been amazing.

If Rebecca gets through to the next stage she could meet competition ambassador and former Girls Aloud star, Nadine Coyle, at the celebrity-packed awards ceremony in London on October 10.