Biography of Claire

Claire's father had a restaurant in Rye, the Old Forge – she grew up, washing up with her brother from the age of seven onwards. Waitressing later. Her grandfather was also from Rye. She worked at Iden Pottery at age fourteen – hand painting. She also worked in shops, cafes and, when she was old enough, various pubs in Rye. She enjoyed working and meeting different people.

Claire went to the university of York where she studied psyschology. She returned to Rye and worked in pubs and restaurant and then went backpacking around the world. She got into photography while travelling and documented human rights issues. When she returned to the UK she got a job working with a project that involved travel to West Africa – various roles – human rights, working in schools – she then did postgraduate diploma in photo-journalism. She was awarded a grant and returned to West Africa to continue to document human rights issues.

She then did a Masters at SOAS (School of African & Oriental Studies, London) in political economy of conflict development and human rights law – she was the first person to analyse the transcripts from the Amnesty Committee part of South Africa Truth & Reconciliation Committee – looking at why perpetrators had been involved in atroctities and the – reasons they gave for what they did. After this she applied to study medicine because she had been trained by Medicins Sans Frontieres (because of her human rights work) A colleague suggested this route to her – it was not something she had considered before. She applied for graduate entry medicine and studied at University of London, St George’s.  After some years in clinical practice she worked in Global Public Health doing work for the WHO and the UN. That enabled her to work remotely.

‘My time is spent working with individuals around the world so a lot of that is done remotely. I have to travel internationally – with the pandemic that has been very little – and everything moved to online work. “

She moved back to Rye permanently with her family in 2017.

She spent a lot of time in my childhood at Rye Nature Reserve and a lot of time on the River Brede, and always, during her working life, returned to Rye – it has always been her home and principle base. Her father, prior to having the Forge Restaurant, worked at sea, in the Merchant Navy "so he had travelled the world and spent time in diverse parts of the world and my grandfather before him, he had also travelled the world working on ships…in the 1920s he would have been in China sailing up the Yangse River…so we are a family that has always gone out but has always come back."

When the pandemic hit Claire was working sixteen hours a day – she was Vice President of the Royal society of Medicine. She was leading on training for health professionals on Covid. She also took 52 health leaders through a leadership course. "It was called the Executive programme on health leadership from London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine – to support health leaders. For all of those individuals their lives were very intense – enormous barriers, geopolitics, nationalism….not being able to get hold of reagents they needed…management of the population, the politics involved in their own countrties were very demanding…”

Claire was on the ground in the Ebola outbreak in West Africa and she led the evaluation for Medicin Sans Frontieres about their response there – that is what got her interested in health leadership – managing in health crisis situations to be able to manage when the system is overwhelmed.

She is now (2023) working for the UK government in a role as Head of Capacity Strengthening for the UK Public Health Rapid Support Teams  to support with outbreaks, epidemics, pandemics around the globe, with low-income countries – strengthening competencies, building networks and infrastructure, locally led – her role is to support local expertise.

Claire is also on Committee of Friends of Rye Nature Reserve and is involved with Transition Rye, including the Sustainability Group

On women’s roles ‘It has changed so dramatically between the recent generations and it feels like society hasn’t actually recognised what that change needs in terms of its infrastructure – but you can make things happen. You can choose a career. You can pursue things that Not that long ago it wouldn’t have been accepted or expected that you could make those changes. Until recently I was the Vice President of the Royal Society of Medicine. This is an ancient traditional institution…you look at the photos of all the previous presidents up until relatively recently they are all male and of a certain age. The Trustee Board similarly….it has changed and there is a good diversity (now)…certainly within that work I was coming up against other individuals….we have 52 sections across all medicine and surgery and a lot of those Councils will be a way of  steeped in working and much more of a male attitude and you’re having to conduct yourself and manage yourself within those environments….I think it’s a fascinating time in history for women when you have much more opportunity than we did before but you have to work very hard to get it and you have to be pretty resilient and also make some decisions about what your values are…"

Audio of interview with Claire