A FORMER teacher from Great Bedwyn who ‘picked herself up off the scrapheap’ after suffering heart infections feels rejuvenated thanks to starting up her own stylist job.

In May 2012, Lara Lauder, of Forest Hill, was well on the way to achieving her dream of becoming a headteacher after being appointed as assistant headteacher at a primary school in Oxfordshire.

However as the job became more taxing and time consuming, due to staff departures, she began getting heart palpitations. Her health declined so much that a year into the job, she collapsed in school and was rushed to hospital after she had a Supraventricular Tachycardia episode, where her blood pressure rocketed.

Although this spelled the end of her teaching career, the 46-year-old, has since become a House of Colour stylist, with her own studio at home, showing clients to to feel confident about colour and style - something she says has been completely revolutionary.

"Without doubt, House of Colour has transformed my life. The way I was going with my teaching job, it was clear that for the sake of my health and my children I could not return to the job I loved, but I felt like I had had my career stolen,” she said.

"The couple of years where I had the heart infection was incredibly stressful and difficult. At times I could barely climb the stairs after long days, let alone cook for my children. Collapsing in school showed me I had to stop.

"But then I came across House of Colour in 2015 and it gave me a chance to start afresh, I picked myself up off the scrapheap. I paid for the training and now I have a knack for it.

"It works by me doing one-on-one or small group sessions to find the colours that harmonise with your natural skin tone, hair and eye colour and then I also work with someone's body architecture and personality to discover their individual style.

"I cover the areas of Marlborough, Devizes, Andover and Hungerford and people come to me to get their colours done and then we might make a day of it and do the styling too where I help them on clothes."

Mrs Lauder, who is married to Richard Lauder, 51, and has two daughters in Louisa, 17, and Ella, 15, still struggles with shortness of breath at times but has learned to live within her means.

"I just take it easier these days. For instance I do sessions three days a week with people and then spend two days networking," she said.

"I am living proof that we should always find what we are passionate about and it is never too late to re-train. After I had the training, I understood why some things looked good on others but not on me.

"The number of compliments I then started receiving was overwhelming and my inner confidence grew. Since then things have got better and better - I work for myself and I just love it."