Claire Seeber – Biography

Because of a love of travel, 10 years after my Austrian father met my English Rose mother over cheap Chianti and original cappuccino (ie not Starbucks) in a beautiful city in the Umbrian hills, I was born in Greenwich, London.

I spent a few months myself in Perugia when I left school but not only did I fail to learn Italian (too much coffee drinking and cigarette smoking and not enough study), I didn’t meet my future husband either.  My academic career culminated in a degree in Drama & English, and an ambition to act – stemming, probably, from my family thinking it was such a bad idea. (I did like to play the rebel in those days).  Bit parts in The Bill etc became too frustrating when I truly hankered after the RSC, and in ’94 I abandoned everything to travel the tropics – although I really only got as far as Bali and Thailand (where I happened to meet my future husband – on a beach, funnily enough).  I did a bit more acting on my return – see Pete Cattaneo’s Screen Two film, Loved Up as the high point in my acting career – but eventually slid smoothly behind the camera instead. (OK, I collapsed there with an almighty clunk after an audition where I was commanded to be ' witty with a Pringle crisp ' –  you try it.)

I was far happier out of the limelight.  My TV career spanned MTV through chat-shows to documentary television, giving me the opportunity to travel the world, be it after oil barons in Oklahoma or Viagra merchants in Surrey (yes really), pop stars in New York or dysfunctional families looking for a fresh start in Australia – although please believe it really wasn’t all glamour (I was sworn at, threatened and propositioned more than once – which kept me on my toes, I suppose). I also started writing features for The Independent on Sunday, The Guardian and The Telegraph.

In 2000 I married that handsome man from the beach in a tiny church in Cornwall, a wedding where my dress wasn’t quite as big as the marquee.  I then became an expert in confessional journalism whilst struggling to fall pregnant after getting married. We left urban London for Greenwich where I’d grown up (re-visiting the foetal position, my solicitor kindly pointed out).  In 2004 we had our first son Fenn, swiftly followed by Raffi 19 months later.  Both were born on the sitting-room floor, which made it more of a wrench to leave that much-loved house at the end of 2007 for a bigger but veritable building-site on the other side of the heath.  Still at least we can swing a cat now.  (Don’t worry I haven’t tried.  Yet).

My photograph was taken by my friend Louisa Haswell.