A DEARTH of women has led a small rural village to choose a carnival queen with a difference for its centrepiece annual procession – a 6ft-tall hairy-chested carpenter.

The high cost of traditional carnival queen dresses, accessories, travel, and now even insurance, meant that the village of Sticker in Cornwall struggled to find a regular queen for its annual carnival this year.

When it was suggested the village should open up the competition for the royal post to a man dressed in drag, villagers were delighted with the idea – and local men were roped into entering.

On Wednesday night, at a packed local pub, judges selected a 33-year-old carpenter to be their new carnival queen.

Father-of-two Ben Rushton, otherwise known as Benny La Rue, dazzled judges in his altered mother-in-law's dress, and beat five other entrants to the title.

Mr Rushton, who is also a keen roller hockey player, said he was persuaded to enter the competition by his partner Claire, 34, a catering manager at a local school.

"Claire and her mother got very excited – and my daughter, who is eight years old. The three of them started talking about how they were going to do it," he said. "They were my team – I was just a clothes horse.

"My mother-in-law had a dress that was altered to fit and I had silver four-inch heels from a fancy dress shop. It is relatively tricky to get them in a size 10.

"There was a beehive red wig, hand-made gloves, and my nails were painted. Claire did my make-up. It was quite a painful ordeal."

Mr Rushton said he was looking forward to sitting on the royal float on Saturday, and would be joined by children Ella, 8, and Jago, 4, on a separate float .

He will be served by two attendants – glamorous runners-up Damian Burgess, a 37 year-old tiler, and Dwayne Trevenna.

Debbie Donnithorne, treasurer of the Sticker Village Association, said she hoped that any controversy about using a drag queen instead of a traditional queen would not discourage anyone from visiting the carnival.

"The traditional carnival queen is a girl from the village up to age of 20, and we didn't have any suitable applicants come forward really," she said. "I hope traditional carnival fans will not shun us for it."