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11
Feb
The Harrogate handywoman who went from bomb disposal to TikTok star
At just 36 years old, Sarah Leslie seems to have lived nine lives already. She has served in the British Army, worked as a bin lorry driver and is now a handywoman and TikTok star.
But how does making videos on how to replace a bathroom fan, or showing people how to fix a seized radiator valve, amass thousands of followers? The Stray Ferret met her to find out more.
“I made a job up for myself in 2020 because I didn’t want to work for anyone anymore”, says Sarah.
Originally from Birmingham, she moved to Harrogate with her husband days before the country went into lockdown.
Prior to that, Sarah and her husband travelled Australia and owned a coffee shop in Surrey. But perhaps most impressively, Sarah spent eight years working in a bomb disposal unit in the Royal Corps of Signals. She explains:
So, there are four people in a bomb disposal team. I was an electronic countermeasures operator, which means that we mitigate the threat of any remote-controlled bomb — so anything that’s set off by a command wire or a remote control. It was my job to figure out what the bomb was using and how to stop it.
The army wasn't on Sarah’s radar when she was working as a tree surgeon in Worcester. But when a job was called off due to rain, her life took an unexpected turn during a trip to the Post Office. She recalls:
I bumped into a Mercian sergeant – I’ll always remember him because he changed the course of my life. I was in my work clothes, and I was quite fit and strong then. He asked me if I wanted to go for a chat and I said, ‘not really’.
He told me he’d make me a cup of tea, so I went into the careers office and did a BARB test [British Army Recruitment Battery test]. Six weeks later, I was in the army.
Sarah said the scariest part of the job was “people just taking pop shots at you over the wall”.
“I’d be minding my own business, eating some noodles on a Sunday afternoon, and then rounds would just appear”, she told the Stray Ferret.
Fast forward to 2020, Sarah and her husband had left the army and moved to Harrogate.
She was working as a bin lorry driver for a waste collection company in Leeds but put on furlough during the pandemic.
Sarah said:
We put an offer in on our house, got accepted and moved in. Literally two days later, the world stopped.
So, we did the immediate stuff in our house that was almost derelict, and I just thought, ‘wow, I need more tools and I’m running out of money, so I’m just going to get people to pay me to do stuff like this for them’. That's when I started my handywoman business.
Sarah created a Facebook business page – The Harrogate Handywoman, which her husband shared – and the rest is history.
"By the time the company wanted me back in September, I had so much work", she said.
One of Sarah's Tik Tok videos.
The TikTok transition
Sarah dipped her toe into the TikTok world shortly before she had twin sons two-and-a-half months premature in 2023.
She posted a few “non-instructional videos”, but focused on raising her sons.
In November 2024, Sarah returned to TikTok - this time showing people how to repair things around their homes.
Just three months later, she now boasts nearly 15,000 followers and has amassed more than 42,000 likes on the app.
The Stray Ferret asked Sarah what she thinks the secret to growing a following is.
Just be honest. Instagram is polished, isn’t it? TikTok isn’t. I’ve found the more polished I am on TikTok, the worse the video does.
For example, I posted a video about sealing a bathroom and I showed the good, the bad and the ugly of the job. I’ll say in the video: ‘this isn’t perfect’.
I also show people tools that are meant to work really well and don’t always do what they’re meant to.
Sarah's Tik Tok video.
Sarah said she started making TikToks to help people with odd jobs “people shouldn’t pay for”.
She added:
People will ring me up and ask me to do a job that will take me 10 minutes. I’ll tell them the price and they say: ‘what?’. So, then I can suggest they watch my TikTok on how to do it and advise them of the tools they need.
I couldn’t sleep at night knowing I’d be charging people for something they can do quite easily.
Sarah told the Stray Ferret she has received great feedback from her TikToks, including people telling her they managed to solve problems around their house after watching one of her videos.
She is now focussing on paid partnerships with companies and brands, alongside her Harrogate Handywoman business. She is also offering an at-home service to teach people how to fix things around their house, as well as corporate days.
“I’m not a joiner, I’m not a plumber, I’m not a painter and decorator – I can just fix a lot of things”, she said.
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