When I left MHSG I went to St John’s College, Oxford to read Classics, producing plays in my spare time and rowing for my college.

I was lucky enough to get a foot in the door at the BBC in 1998, beginning my training in the BBC Arts Department as a researcher and then assistant producer on Arena and Newsnight Review.  I began to direct and was commissioned to make one of the first documentaries ever to appear on BBC Four, ‘The Many Faces of Samuel Fosso’, which was shot in Africa and New York. 

I left the BBC in 2002 to go freelance and was even able to use the Ancient Greek that I studied at MHSG to produce ‘Helen of Troy’ for Channel 4.

So far in 2008 I have directed four films for the History Channel, three of which have been about the history of America’s nuclear weapons development. This involved location filming in some of the most classified sites in the US – from New Mexico to Colorado and Washington State to Washington DC.

While this could all sound like one long glamorous life of travelling and having fun, the television industry is highly competitive (only 4% of directors are female) and all of my films have required long hours and gruelling trips away from home.

I have extremely fond memories of MHSG, especially lessons with Miss Tong and Mrs Trueman.  I think that their encouragement at an early age gave me the confidence to deal with many of the complex challenges I face in my chosen career.