Richard Young

Pro­duc­tion de­sign­er,

fash­ion di­rec­tor | sto­ry­teller

The epit­o­me of re­splen­dence and ex­cel­lence, Wendy Fitzwilliam is cel­e­brat­ing 25 years since her vic­to­ry at the Miss Uni­verse pageant in 1998. This lawyer, ac­tress, mod­el, singer, TV host, ra­dio per­son­al­i­ty, moth­er and in­ter­na­tion­al beau­ty queen con­tin­ues to do us proud and what a fit­ting way to ush­er in In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day to be com­mem­o­rat­ed on Wednes­day (March 8).

See­ing Wendy at the 72nd edi­tion of the In­ter­na­tion­al Miss Uni­verse pageant in New Or­leans, ear­li­er this year, was an in­spir­ing mo­ment for all who dare to dream big, for 25 years pri­or, she cap­tured the Miss Uni­verse ti­tle in a nail-bit­ing mo­ment for us all, at the Stan Sher­iff Cen­tre in Hon­olu­lu. It was in­deed an ho­n­our for all Trin­bag­o­ni­ans to wit­ness her again, stun­ning the world and mag­nif­i­cent, in all her glo­ry.

On turn­ing 50 years and cel­e­brat­ing life-chang­ing events

There’s more that Wendy cel­e­brates. I asked her how it feels to be 50 years old, she claimed that there is no sense of age­ing, per se. Her birth­day co­in­cides with chang­ing events in her life, she said, even more than her life re­spond­ing to a sense of age. She be­lieves in main­tain­ing dis­ci­pline and mod­er­a­tion in all she does and at­trib­ut­es that sense of cen­tred­ness, as the key to her buoy­an­cy and band­width.

Yes, this beau­ty with the ethe­re­al gaze just turned 50 and nev­er was she one to hide her age. She mus­es that as life changes, one does in fact get old­er but birth­days sim­ply “etch a notch on your record of ex­pe­ri­ences.”

We were sit­ting in the open, with a bunch of stu­dents un­der the en­gi­neer­ing block hav­ing a chat, and no one seemed the wis­er as to whom we were. We en­joyed the seem­ing anonymi­ty, as no one bore us any mind. I had asked Wendy to do an in­ter­view to cel­e­brate her 50th with us, and she kind­ly oblig­ed.

As we crossed the quad­ran­gle to get to our spot to chat, she in­dulged in her favourite, some ice cream, sat­is­fy­ing her sweet tooth, quite un­abashed­ly, as I sipped a dou­ble espres­so. What a pe­cu­liar sight, I thought to my­self–both of us tow­er­ing over six feet, hud­dled un­der an um­brel­la, as it was driz­zling, every­body mind­ing their own busi­ness. Per­fect for an in­ter­view!

What’s her great­est ac­com­plish­ment?

An easy an­swer for Wendy—her pride, her un­end­ing joy is her son, Ailan. She con­sid­ers him the great­est ac­com­plish­ment of her life. Nur­tur­ing him to be the best ver­sion of him­self is what kept her ground­ed and fo­cused on be­ing present and re­source­ful. In­deed, she had a net­work that fa­cil­i­tat­ed this on­go­ing prepa­ra­tion and she is proud of this vil­lage that shaped him to be a de­cent hu­man be­ing, one that is re­spect­ful, non-judge­men­tal and con­fi­dent. The in­vest­ment was worth it, she as­serts, “no one can pull wool over his eyes, he should do well, for he is an old soul trapped in that young body.” Her smile of ful­fil­ment says it all, no oth­er achieve­ment mat­ters!

“Ailan is now at board­ing school, so I am an emp­ty nester, I have more free time to look af­ter my­self, so I am oblig­ed to be vig­i­lant about my self-care and the en­er­gies around me.” She has tak­en up the most ‘amaz­ing job’ at the helm of the Ma Pau Group of Com­pa­nies. It’s an em­pire built by a “most gra­cious won­der­ful hu­man be­ing John Wal­lace. I be­lieve in his vi­sion” for he al­lows women to be em­pow­ered, cre­at­ing space for their ar­tic­u­la­tion. It’s a very fe­male-pow­ered busi­ness with great syn­er­gy.

What at­tract­ed her to his modus operan­di is that he hired kids from the Cyril Ross Chil­dren’s Home (for­mer­ly Cyril Ross Nurs­ery). He was the first to open­ly wel­come and em­brace peo­ple with HIV, al­low­ing them to lead nor­mal lives and be con­tribut­ing mem­bers of so­ci­ety. An­oth­er pol­i­cy is that of hir­ing lo­cals for which she ap­plauds him, whole­heart­ed­ly. “I am very proud to be as­so­ci­at­ed with this brand.”

An­oth­er book in the Fu­ture?

When asked when her next book is due, Wendy open­ly de­clares, she is in the process of liv­ing book two. Notwith­stand­ing, she has be­gun writ­ing Uni­ver­sal Ex­pe­ri­ences. It is not mere­ly a book about ex­pe­ri­ences at Miss Uni­verse but about cos­mic al­liances that speak to con­nect­ing the dots on the jour­ney of life and grav­i­tat­ing to those who of­fer light.

Her as­sur­ance and con­fi­dence in this phi­los­o­phy of grav­i­tat­ing to the light of the con­nect­ing dots are man­i­fest af­fir­ma­tive­ly in her re­la­tion­ship with Pe­ter Elias who was her stew­ard in­to the win at Miss Uni­verse and con­tin­ues to be a guid­ing light. She ref­er­ences him with the deep­est ad­mi­ra­tion.

What more can I say about this pow­er­house beau­ty? She ac­cred­its her dis­tinc­tion to the up­bring­ing of her par­ents and her con­sum­mate sense of ‘Trini­ness’ which she cred­its to her in­de­fati­ga­ble spir­it and in­domitable dri­ve. She is a true tes­ta­ment to the beau­ty and brain com­pos­ite. As we lead in­to In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Week, let’s take a tear sheet from our very own Miss Uni­verse, an em­bod­i­ment of em­brac­ing eq­ui­ty.

Wendy's Beau­ty Se­crets

What’s the se­cret to this ra­di­at­ing skin, this lis­som body and this youth­ful pres­ence?

Dis­ci­pline and mod­er­a­tion

“It all comes back to dis­ci­pline and mod­er­a­tion. I was prob­a­bly al­ways an in­ter­mit­tent faster, be­fore it was trend­ing be­cause I am not one for break­fast. Some hot wa­ter with lemon would do just fine. I don’t have a pen­chant for meat, I eat a lot of fish and veg­eta­bles, and I am not an al­co­holic drinker. I must ad­mit we Fitzes have a sweet tooth, so ice cream is my in­dul­gence as you would have no­ticed.” She laughed that open-mouthed, big gre­gar­i­ous laugh which has been cap­tured so flir­ta­tious­ly and ef­fort­less­ly by the most amaz­ing pho­tog­ra­phers, Calvin French, Pe­dro Vir­gil, Patrick De­marche­li­er, and William Agui­ton to name a few.

Con­sis­ten­cy in ex­er­cis­ing

She tes­ti­fies to her con­sis­ten­cy in ex­er­cis­ing. It’s a must! She is not as dili­gent as her sis­ter, Dionyse, but she al­ways trav­els with a skip­ping rope, do­ing 150 to 200 skips when she gets a chance and light weights to com­ple­ment the reg­i­men. “How else can you main­tain a lit­tle tone in the body?” She ac­knowl­edges that post 30 years old, her body want­ed to put on a lit­tle weight around the waist, and that’s when she knew that she no longer can eat a bag of pholourie while sit­ting on the side­lines and watch­ing oth­ers work out around the sa­van­nah. It had be­come time to craft the ex­pec­ta­tion of the body.

Evan­ge­list for yo­ga prac­tice

Dur­ing COVID, she and her son, Ailan, picked up yo­ga. She is now a con­sum­mate evan­ge­list for yo­ga prac­tice, invit­ing every­one to get with the pro­gramme. “You must as­sist the age­ing joints, main­tain flex­i­bil­i­ty, cen­tre your men­tal health, clear your lymph nodes and ex­er­cise reg­u­lat­ed breath­ing rhythms.

“I am not a night owl and I have one big meal a day fol­lowed by soup and prob­a­bly some or­gan­ic herbal teas.”

In a nut­shell, “You must be dili­gent and fol­low a dai­ly regime with ded­i­cat­ed dis­ci­pline.”

A sense of char­i­ty

One of the many fas­ci­nat­ing things about Wendy is her sense of char­i­ty cou­pled with that en­gag­ing, benev­o­lent spir­it. It is less about her lend­ing her celebri­ty to a cause and more be­cause she re­al­ly loves to do good and help her fel­low man. She avows that if she could make big bucks by sim­ply help­ing peo­ple, she would do that sole­ly and as­sid­u­ous­ly. She gen­uine­ly loves help­ing peo­ple.

This sense of vol­un­teerism was in­stilled from an ear­ly age when her par­ents would have en­cour­aged her and her sis­ter, Dionyse, to choose one of their three best gifts at Christ­mas­time to give to the less for­tu­nate. Christ­mas af­ter­noons were spent at or­phan­ages and chil­dren’s homes giv­ing the needy treats that their par­ents par­celled out for dis­tri­b­u­tion.

Her work with the Cyril Ross Chil­dren’s Home is a con­tin­u­a­tion of this bene­fac­tor spir­it, choos­ing to work with chil­dren with HIV, whose dreams may have felt crushed be­cause of the stig­mas at­tached to the dis­ease. Even when she was at St Joseph Con­vent, as a teenag­er, she was part of the St Vin­cent de Paul chap­ter in her parish, dis­trib­ut­ing meals on Sun­day morn­ings. It’s no idle boast when she touts this as her “qui­et pas­sion.” So, this align­ment with serv­ing oth­ers su­per­sedes all.

 “I am not in love with ma­te­r­i­al things. The great­est joy, I ex­pe­ri­enced was as a good­will am­bas­sador with the Sasamani Foun­da­tion, em­pow­er­ing gen­der eq­ui­ty, work­ing in places as far afield as Ugan­da, Kenya, Ethiopia and, right here in the Caribbean, Haiti and Ja­maica.” In­deed, she em­braces eq­ui­ty as a mantra in keep­ing with the clar­i­on call of In­ter­na­tion­al Women’s Day, this year.