Turning our troubles into triumph

When these women faced setbacks in their careers, they found new paths to follow

- FRANCES LEATE

‘I swapped aeroplanes for pizzas’

Hannah Gaiger lives with her boyfriend, Joshua in Faversham, Kent.

Turning over on my sunlounger, I looked out past the sand dunes to the glistening Caribbean sea and felt the sun on my body. After working a long shift, I wanted to enjoy every bit of sunshine I could.

As an air hostess working for British Airways, I was always flying off somewhere exotic, sometimes even getting to treat Joshua or my mum to a discounted trip. I really did love my job and, after six years, I couldn’t imagine doing anything else. So when I was told in April that I was being put on furlough, I found it hard to adjust to the new reality of staying at home day after day.

Due to COVID-19, Joshua had to temporarily close the village pub he ran with his mum, too, so we set about doing every DIY job in the house and garden we could think of.

‘I can’t wait to get back to work,’ I told him in May when we’d run out of things to do. ‘Me, too,’ he agreed with a sigh. But, with no end in sight to lockdown, and our incomes dramatically cut, we started talking about what else we could do to bring in an income.

Back in February, Joshua had bought a traditional pizza oven with the idea of adding authentic Italian pizzas to the pub menu and, as we chatted about selling it, we both came up with the idea of a collection-only pizza business. So, that night, we sat down and drew up a business plan, noting down the cost of dough and toppings and how we’d divide the workload.