Agnieszka Olejek Owner of The Beauty Salon Interviewed by Ania Bas at The Public
I came over from Poland to the midlands, to my sister. It was straight after my A levels, I was 19. It was 7 years ago. In West Bromwich you feel like at home, you meet many friends, who also left the country. Parts of the town feel like little Polish colonies. Back in Poland I worked as a model. It wasn’t glamorous at all. I made it to the finals of one of the miss contests in the country but I decided not to take part in the end. It wasn’t my thing, all this smiling, and all this looking nice.
Here in UK I used to work as a cleaner a lot, I was cleaning schools, offices, private homes, medical centres. But I quickly did a beauty course, I am doing nails. This is how it all started. I have just opened a beauty salon: now I have a hairdresser, a masseur and tanning facilities all on my premises. On top of it all I am a fitness instructor. From early childhood it was my dream but I couldn’t afford it in Poland, it is a very expensive course. Here this was possible. I was a bit concerned whether my English was good enough,