Nail technician Sharon sinks claws into Anne Robinson

CATTY Anne Robinson may think she is a tough old bird but start-up business owner Sharon Sharples from Harrison Street can be a hard woman too, if she has a mind to be.

The pair met and weighed each other up on TV’s The Weakest Link.

Sharon, 43, got to the last of eight rounds — tantalisingly close to a £3,200 prize — before being declared “the weakest link” and sent off, leaving two male contestants to fight it out.

It was just another challenge to former youth worker Sharon, who in May set up nail technician studio, Simply Nails, in Harrison Street.

Earlier she completed a New Entrepreneur Scholarship course held in Barrow to teach people how to work for themselves.

She studied over 16 weeks before qualifying for a £1,600 business start-up grant.

It helped buy her digital nail art machine.

At £1 a finger, customers get any of more than 1,500 different images or patterns — anything from fish to flowers — printed directly onto their nails.

Of her encounters with the feisty Ms Robinson, Sharon said: “She was worse off the camera than on. She was a right catty person. There was an elderly woman who did not walk off when she was supposed to and Anne called her stupid and said can’t she follow simple instructions.

“It’s an absolutely massive studio but you are stuck in a tiny corner of it with her.”

“I enjoyed being pampered and put up in a lovely hotel, and you got your hair done and make-up done. The people who did the make-up were even asking me how to get their nails done like mine.

Sharon’s nails also came to the attention of the hawk-eyed Ms Robinson.

Sharon said: “We had about a three-minute conversation about nails. She called me a manicurist so I bit her head off because I am not a manicurist I am a technician. She gave me a funny look and said explain the difference, so I explained a manicurist shapes nails. I do extensions and I can do more expensive treatments rather than just shape nails.

“Then she asked to have a look at my nails and said they were a bit common.”

Sharon told her she had different images on every nail at the time to advertise the technique and that people wouldn’t normally go out looking like that.

Sharon’s friends had told her before she was a match for Anne Robinson.

She said: “I am straight-talking and don’t stand any messing, but she was quite mild mannered with me.”

Her TV debut on March 29 helped. She said: “It was good for business because I get recognised. People say you were on The Weakest Link, let’s have a look at your nails.”

She says: “There has been a glut of people going into nail businesses, but I have something that a lot of people can’t offer, with my digital nail art printer. It looks absolutely stunning.”

Apart from nails, her business offers a range of treatments including hand massages, foot massages and spas.

Married to Philip, a principal engineer in the shipyard, she enjoys the change of lifestyle.

“I am 43 now, not 23, and I just thought I need to do something different. This is something I have always been interested in.”