From Military Musician to Kilt Maker
For over 140 years, the Forces Employment Charity (FEC) has supported the Armed Forces community to build successful lives beyond service. Through tailored, one-to-one guidance, training opportunities, and business support, they help veterans, Service leavers, reservists and their families.
The Charity’s dedicated team of Military Women Employment Advisors empower female veterans and reservists to find sustainable careers that offer fulfilment, responding to research that has found that female veterans face more barriers to employment than males. One such beneficiary is Hannah.
Hannah lives in a remote part of Sutherland, which she calls “beautiful, but not always the easiest place to build a business”. She started her career in 2010 by joining the RAF as a trombone player and performed around the world for more than ten years. Later, she moved to the Army to be closer to her family. In 2023, she left the service after a medical discharge due to a long-term back injury.
Moving to civilian life was not easy for Hannah. She dealt with a long maternity leave during COVID-19, high childcare costs, and the challenges of living in a rural area with limited support and services. “With two young children, childcare alone made returning to traditional employment difficult”, she explains.
Hannah wanted to shape her own future, so she decided to learn kilt-making, even though she faced obstacles from the start. She was turned down for a military tailoring course because it wasn’t open to women, so she taught herself. “I was told there wasn’t really a place for a female tailor. So, I decided to learn anyway.”
Her determination led her to start her own business, Thistle and Cloth, where she blends traditional kilt-making with modern tartan design. Like many small business owners, especially women in rural areas, she found it hard to get funding, build networks, and grow her business. Hannah connected with the Forces Employment Charity through the Career Transition Partnership. Her Employment Advisor gave her dedicated support, including advice on funding, business development, and introductions to wider networks.
A major step for Hannah was winning a Heritage Crafts bursary. “It’s not just the funding – it’s the connections and visibility that come with it. That support gave me the confidence to grow.”
In 2024, she was named Young Business of the Year by the Caithness Chamber of Commerce and had her designs at the Scottish Fashion Week. Since then, Hannah’s business continues to grow, as has been working with and training others, helping to keep a traditional craft alive, and creating local job opportunities.
