She’s beautiful, she models lingerie and for a year she has been Miss England. But now, after several months leave of absence, Katrina Hodge is unpacking her fatigues and going back to the job she loves – a Lance Corporal in the British Army.

“I’ve had a year of glitz and glamour but that sort of stuff doesn’t last – the Army is a career for me.”

She was runner up in the 2009 Miss England contest but took over the title when the original winner pulled out.

She entered Miss England as a joke against the lads in  her unit who teased her about turning up with a pink suitcase and false eyelashes when she first joined the army and called her “Combat Barbie” as a result

They all came along to the final this year and cheered me on. You could hear the rabble of army lads when I came on stage”.

She is still very girlie and loves pink – and she does look good modelling lingerie. But she has also won a military commendation in Iraq when she confronted an armed Iraqi.

She had been part of a team of soldiers whose vehicle had crashed off a road, turning over three times. When she came to she realised an Iraqi had taken weapons from the crashed vehicle. She wrestled him to the ground and retrieved the weapons, after “giving him a whack”

Quite a lady, I think….