THE VIEW
C laire is a legend! When I meet her I am blown away at her enthusiasm for life and all it has to offer. She has fully accepted her “new way of life” as a blind person and does not let this disability deter her from doing anything she sets her mind on – I am in awe! Claire said, “I had a very normal upbringing and I have a twin brother and two older sisters. We lived in a town in Sussex and had a pretty regular childhood growing up in the 80s and 90s. We played outside with our friends on bikes and went to the woods and pretended a stick was in fact a dog! I always loved the idea of being in the performing arts and particularly wanted to be a lighting or sound technician. “After I left school I started training to be a lighting technician but I realised I was scared of heights so I changed to sound as I love music, but I just couldn’t get a job! So, I ended up as a post lady and worked for the Royal Mail in Crawley. I loved my work and it was great in the summer cycling around on my bike listening to my Discman but in winter it was hard. “I then became pregnant when I was still very young. I was expecting twins and I had a very tough time. They were identical girls but very sadly I lost one of them and the doctors warned me that the other twin had a slim chance of surviving. I couldn’t work for about four months but eventually I had a very healthy baby girl who weighed over eight pounds!! “I couldn’t go back to being a post girl as I had to start work at 4am so after six months' maternity leave I found a job with an airline. I started off in the call centre but that didn’t last too long as I didn’t like the way the general public spoke to me, so I moved on to a more tech-based job. I stayed there for nearly 20 years until I was made redundant during Covid.” But it was in 2009 that everything changed though as Claire had two strokes – one in the April and the other in September. She said, “It was incredibly scary and I had always suffered from migraine headaches but I woke up and realised I had lost the ability to string sentences together. I felt very unwell but I drove my daughter to school and went to work and spoke to my manager.They called an ambulance and I was whisked off to hospital and they confirmed I had had a stroke followed
"I AM ALSO AN AMBASSADOR FOR THE RNIB AND WE WORK WITH PARLIAMENT AND MPS TO TRY TO MAKE CHANGES FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE BLIND"
a few months later by a second one. Once I was back at work I was driving home one day and realised I couldn’t see the road
20 First Time Buyer April/May 2026
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