Role models don’t need to be stick thin

TV Dragon reveals her struggles as she faced up to pregnancy battle

DRAGONS’ Den star Sara Davies has admitted she felt pressurised to make her parents grandchildren.

Her fertility battle was such, she clammed up and refused to tell people what was happening, batting away the usual questions saying she was too busy to have kids.

The 38-year-old crafting business queen has written a memoir We Can All Make It, in which she charts her life, from her working class beginnings in County Durham, where she picked up business acumen from her entrepreneurial father who had his own property and transport courier company, and set her mother up with a wallpaper and paint shop.

Davies started her own crafting supply company, Crafter’s Companion, while studying business at York University, later launching The Enveloper, a bespoke envelope for handmade cards which set her on the road to millions.

The book also details her setbacks, let-downs by buyers, patenting issues and legal battles.

Away from business, one of the most challenging periods of her life came in her mid-20s when, desperate for children, she didn’t fall pregnant. Her husband, Simon, who she has been with since they were teenagers and who gave up his career to join Crafter’s Companion, apparently despaired about how consumed she became.

She said: “I didn’t even talk to my family about it. For years, I would say, ‘We’re so busy at work, we haven’t got time for kids’. We were trying but it wasn’t happening.

“I felt there was pressure on me to give my parents grandkids. They knew what a big family person I was and were worried I was losing sight of my ultimate goal, which was to have a bigger family, because I was so focused on the business.” The stress resulted in weight gain, as she turned to chocolate and cake for comfort.

“We’d keep trying and I’d think, ‘I’m probably going to be pregnant by the end of this month, so I don’t need to keep going to the gym or watching what I eat because I’ll be getting bigger anyway’.

“It would get to the end of the month and I’d get my period and be distraught so I would comfort eat. And the cycle would start again.

“My sister finally sat me down and said it wasn’t going to help – she wasn’t necessarily saying, ‘Let’s go on a diet and lose loads of weight’ – but that I needed to get my body in a good place.”

So she stopped trying for a baby, lost some weight – and fell pregnant almost without trying at all.

Now she has sons, Oliver, eight, and five-year-old Charlie. After having Charlie, she was told she needed to get her weight under control or she could develop type 2 diabetes. Davies, who competed in last year’s Strictly Come Dancing, gets up at 5.30am to fit in 45 minutes of exercise before her work.

She said: “Women don’t need all stickthin role models. “My drive to lose weight is to be healthy, not that I want to look thinner on TV.” • Sara Davies’ book We Can All Make It is out now.

MOVER AND SHAKER Sara during her stint on Strictly