‘Barack and Michelle would be great On Bargain Hunt. They would be hard to beat’
Antiques expert on treasured link with former US President
Every day, millions of people tune in at lunchtime to see Red take on Blue as two teams battle it out on Bargain Hunt.
But it was in a different battle between red and blue that the show’s presenter, Natasha Raskin Sharp, found one of her most treasured possessions – a letter of reference from Barack Obama.
On a summer internship in 2007, she worked out of New Hampshire on the ultimately successful Democrat campaign to take back control of the White House.
She was fortunate enough to meet the history-making man himself, and wasn’t shy in paperclipping his glowing words to her CV when she got home.
“When you’re given that sort of resource, you can’t waste it,” she said. “I used it to get a job in a pub. Do you have any references? Well, does the leader of the free world count?
“I was only there for three months, and he came to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, when I happened to be there. I was so lucky, if you think of the number of states in America, and the number of campaign offices across the whole country which Barack Obama would have visited during that campaign.
“He was asked to sign letterheaded paper when he was there, and it happened to come through the printer with a very generic reference for me.
“I actually think Barack and Michelle would make fantastic Bargain Hunt contestants. They’d be hard to beat. I don’t know if I’d put them up against the Bidens or go for a Republican opponent. They’d have to be the blue team, of course.”
Nowadays Raskin Sharp’s CV more than speaks for itself, helming Bargain Hunt, featuring on Antiques Road Trip and Flog It! and hosting a BBC Radio Scotland show on Thursday nights.
Born into a family of art lovers – her father is landscape artist Philip Raskin – she has a history of art degree from Glasgow University and is an auctioneer with a decade’s worth of experience on the rostrum, founding her own online house, Exhibit Auctions, during the pandemic.
She made quite an impact on her Bargain Hunt debut as an expert guide to the contestants. Pitted
against fellow Scot Paul Laidlaw, she managed to pull off an underdog win on her first attempt.
“It was bananas,” she recalled. “I had seen Bargain Hunt a few times but I hadn’t sat and watched 20 episodes in anticipation. I was really delighted to be asked and presumed that I would never be back again. “I should have been even more nervous than I was, given Paul’s reputation and his ability to make huge sums of money. Basically he was unrivalled, or certainly was at that point.
“I don’t think that he was expecting much competition so we were all quite surprised when I came out on top! I don’t remember that first batch being a winning streak but I certainly remember that one because I think crew, contestants, everyone said, ‘Oh, wow!’ If I remember correctly, it wasn’t even an antique that helped us, it was a sort of late 20th Century plough. I think that was just a stroke of luck.
“Everybody was so lovely. The crew, a lot of whom I’m still working with now, were so welcoming and had a great ability to make me relax in front of the camera.”
Raskin Sharp is now more than used to the camera, having been promoted in 2015 to a rotating presenter role.
“It took me a few years to properly relax,” she admitted. “The fact that I even get called a daytime presenter is hilarious to me. I never for a second imagined or had the audacity to think that’s what I would end up doing with my life.
“After trying out for the presenter role, I was completely astonished when the executive producer phoned me to say I’d been chosen. I was sitting in the back of a taxi and I could hardly hear because the traffic was so loud, saying, ‘Are you serious? Are you for real?’ I really was taken aback.
“I grabbed it with both hands because you never know when an opportunity like that is going to arise again. It’s not the kind of thing you’re going to turn down but it’s also not the kind of thing you take lightly. It’s a huge responsibility. I continue to be so grateful for the vote of confidence.
“It’s just a fun workplace, if you can call it that. And I really love being a part of it. I never come home from a Bargain Hunt shoot with anything other than a big smile on my face.”
Raskin Sharp’s success story is replicated across a growing number of factual programmes, such as The Repair Shop, with an increasing number of specialists in niche fields finding themselves elevated into TV stars.
“There are loads of people like me out there who just happen to have discovered that they are decent talking down a lens or speaking to somebody else on camera,” Raskin Sharp said.
“We are all a bit of a strange breed but increasingly it’s less and less strange, because people are plucked from all sorts of different walks of life in all sorts of different industries.
“You never know what kind of programme is going to be made next. If it happens to be one that revolves around your industry, you can be doing what I’m doing in 10 minutes time, so get ready!”
Raskin Sharp was honoured to be asked to write the foreword for the first Bargain Hunt book – a handbook on how to spot diamonds in the rough.
“You could ask 20 different viewers why they love the programme and you would receive 20 different answers,” she said of the show, a fixture of the TV schedules since 2000. “It’s like a lot of the game shows that we see on television, the idea that you can play at home, and then you can actually apply to do it for real.
“There are people who appear on the programme and you chat with them and they say they’ve been meaning to apply for 15 years. It’s so lovely to think that a little bit of magic occurred one day when they watched an episode and they decided to finally apply.
“The idea that you can go and have your moment in your fleece is quite appealing. Plus, you do get to take it home.
“On some programmes you win a trophy. On some programmes you win a title. On Bargain Hunt, you go home with a lovely bit of kit!”