She ditched 30-year career at MoD to set up footcare business<p>

<p>After 30 years in the same job, Karen Thompson decided it was time for a change.
Working as project manager for the Ministry of Defence meant the 60-year-old, from Manningtree, was having a daily 80-mile round trip to and from work.

Although she enjoyed her job, she found her home life wasn’t what she wanted it to be, so she took the voluntary redundancy on offer and set up her own business, Healthier Soles, which focuses on healthcare for feet.

Karen explains: “My mum had cancer and the illness affects people in different ways.

“For my mum, it was her feet and as I was training in footcare I would go and massage her feet, cut her nails and treat her feet for corns.

“She was my first practise buddy while I was studying for the qualification on foot health, but it was also a soothing way to be close to mum without crowding her.”

Karen knew her option to take voluntary redundancy could be on the cards 18 months before it actually happened, giving her a chance to decide what she may like to do next.

She says: “I did a 12-month distance learning course with the Smae Institute in Maidenhead, Berkshire, which is the longest running independent provider of foot healthcare training in the UK.

“I have always been comfortable with feet. I carried on with this while I was still working, which was hard to do as I had to fit it around work, commuting and everything else. Then I had to travel to Maidenhead and stay for two weeks while I did clinic work.

“I was supervised while I dealt with clients and you are really thrown in at the deep end. It was exhausting, but the progress you make in two weeks is amazing.

“The confidence you develop working with so many different people gives you a real boost.”

When it came to crunch time at work, Karen had ten days in which to make the life-changing decision to either keep her job or to make the jump.

She admits: “It was the scariest ten days of my life because when you are self-employed, you fall by your sword.”

Karen completed her course in September last year, left the MoD in March this year and set to work on her business straight away.

She is not a podiatrist or chiropodist as they need specialist degrees.

Neither is Karen a pedicurist. She is qualified in helping people improve the health of their feet and carry out certain treatments.

She says: “Doing my training made me realise that for the elderly, feet are everything. If they can’t walk their, health deteriorates, emotionally, mentally, physically.

“I treated one lady who had 20 corns on her feet. She went from feeling like she was constantly walking on pebbles to walking on air. I suddenly understood why I wanted to do it.”