Dragon Sara snubbed a chance to pitch in the Den

THE newest Dragon to the Den has revealed she was asked to pitch her fledgling craft business to the BBC show when she was still a student.

But Sara Davies turned the offer down because she didn’t need the money.

Now worth an estimated £37million from her craft supplies business, Crafter’s Companion – and still only

35 – Davies was approached by a BBC researcher 15 years ago while atyork University.

She said: “I’d just won an award but I said, ‘I don’t really need any money but it would be awesome to have one of those Dragons on board for advice’.

“The BBC didn’t see it that way, so it didn’t happen.you needed to take money from them but I actually had £100,000 in the bank already.”

Her family, husband Simon and two boys, aged three and six, were initially sceptical about her doing the show.

“They were nervous about me becoming a Dragon,” she added.

“They were thinking, ‘You’ve got a really successful business, you don’t need to do this for the money and it’s going to take you away from the business’. Not to mention my two young boys.

“My mum was also nervous, thinking, ‘If you put yourself in the public eye, you’re going to open yourself up to criticism’. She couldn’t face the thought of people talking negatively about me on social media.

“I said to her, ‘No Mum, I’m a big girl and a really nice person, but I’m prepared for anything that comes my way’.”

She says the best way to avoid the trolls is to ignore them.

“I did have a lot of negativity when I started on a shopping channel 15 years ago,” she says. “It was really upsetting then but my husband would say, ‘Just don’t read it’ which I didn’t. I still don’t.”

Her determination, she said, comes from her upbringing.

“I grew up in a little pit village in the north-east.

“My dad had a little transport company and mum had a wallpaper and paint shop.

“So I’d always been brought up to think that the harder you work, the more it pays off.

“We didn’t have much money but my dad used to say, ‘Reach for the stars, and if you hit the Moon, you’ve done all right’.”

● Dragons’ Den, 8pm tonight, BBC Two.