Island nurse Nicola Libby and two of her pals surprised her son Stephen on the set of ITV's This Morning show today (Tuesday), when they appeared in the studio as his subjects for a makeover.  

Stornoway's very own Stephen Libby, now a regular presenter on the show and making a name for himself as a stylist since jointly winning The Traitors, had no idea that the "three NHS nurses" he was going to be styling were his mum and her longtime pals, Elaine Macleod and Susan Macaulay.

The trio all work in Stornoway's Western Isles Hospital – Nicola in Surgical and Elaine and Susan in Accident and Emergency – and the television crew at This Morning were desperate to make the makeover happen, once they found out nurse Nicola was Stephen's mum.

Nicola, Elaine and Susan were in London for The National Television Awards tonight, which they will be going along to, as well as Stephen.

On Facebook earlier today, NHS Western Isles shared a social post celebrating their nurses' glamorous makeover, saying: "So delighted to see three wonderful local nurses, Nicola, Elaine and Susan getting pampered with a wonderful makeover on ITV's This Morning today, by Nicola's son, Stephen Libby – so well deserved."

There were warm reactions to the post, with one commentator calling the TV segment "a much needed lovely feel-good piece of telly" while another agreed the treat was "well deserved". 

Trailing the show beforehand, Stephen had posted on Instagram that he was "back in my happy place @thismorning giving three wonderful ladies an NTA’s makeover – tune in to see the transformation.” The next update on his socials showed him taking a minute to, as he said, "compose myself" after being shocked when the This Morning hosts brought his mum and her friends out onto the studio floor. 

The eventual outfit choices included a sparkly jumpsuit for Nicola, which sparked questions from the hosts about who influenced who, given Stephen's famous love of a jumpsuit and his other distinctive sartorial choices.

Nicola spoke to welovestornoway from their hotel as they got ready for the awards night, where they have red carpet access and will enjoy watching all the action.

Hopefully they will see Stephen and his fellow Traitors pick up the award in the reality competition category, although competition is fierce. 

The trip to London came about in the first place because Nicola and her friends were going on their annual girls holiday together. They tagged an additional couple of nights in London onto the end of their long weekend in Lake Anesey in France after finding out The National Television Awards would be on.

Nicola had figured Stephen would probably be involved in the programme and admitted: "Since he won, I just love following him and being a little bit of a part of it and seeing all the celebrities. It’s just like an added bonus.”

Once the plan was in place for the makeover, the challenge was to keep it a secret from Stephen who knew his mum and her friends were in town – and knew that he was doing a makeover for three NHS nurses.

To put him off the scent, and displaying Traitor levels of cunning, Nicola devised a plan to get fellow Traitor winner Rachel to give them an alibi... and tell Stephen she would be having breakfast with the trio while he was filming the makeover.

As viewers would see, it worked like a charm.

Nicola praised the whole This Morning team who "couldn't have been nicer" to them. "Stephen had such a lovely time dressing us because he wanted us to look and feel special as well but the This Morning team were absolutely amazing. We’re honestly so privileged to have had this experience.”

Finally, Nicola confirmed to welovestornoway that Stephen does get his love of a good jumpsuit from her.

“I’m the original jumpsuit girl, yes. My first recollection of a jumpsuit is one that my mum actually made me when I was probably about eight or nine. I was going away to a school camp and she made me this green jumpsuit and it had a silver sparkly N on the front pocket.

“I love a jumpsuit, I do. I had a jumpsuit on at the ladies lunch.”

The day was "such a laugh", she said – and that was even before the awards ceremony got underway.

As joint winner of The Traitors, where he Rachel Duffy won a share of £95,750, Lewis-born Stephen Libby has become something of a national treasure.

Good luck to Stephen and his fellow Traitors at the NTAs tonight.