A woman who won the prize of a free market pitch has set her stall out with such success that she is now selling her customised dog collars at Harrods of London.

Sharon Pomeroy, from Upwell, near Wisbech, won the five-week pitch at Sheringham Market last year after she found herself out of work in March 2011.

Her bright idea came about when she saw some customised collars at a Spanish market. She brought some home and added her own adornments.

The idea got her to the second stage of First Pitch - a contest run by the National Market Traders' Federation - securing the Sheringham pitch last summer, which she continued for a number of months.

But slow trade has led to her giving up the market stall and looking for different ways to market the Zigwagz collars.

She said: 'Giving up the stall was down to finances. The summer was great, but in the winter no-one came out to spend money, so I had to look at other options for marketing the collars.

'My daughter's headmistress said 'why aren't you talking to Harrods?' I made some collars with 'Harrods' on and took some photographs. I made up some designs to go with the Olympics, and things that I thought would go with the Royal family.

'When I went down there, they loved them and said they wanted to take them.'

Mrs Pomeroy said her collars had also been worn by a model on ITV1's This Morning.

She added: 'Having stopped the market stall, I'm now doing shows and a wholesaler has taken them on. What Harrods has done for me is open the door.'

Mrs Pomeroy used to run seminars to help the unemployed return to work, but lost her job when government funding ran out.

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