Claire Camden
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Out of Character
Claire Camden (formerly Driscoll), née Fitzwilliam, was an NPC until February of 2006. She was cemented in gameplay solely for a once-AU love affair with Jack Dickon, by Scout.
She has always existed as Avery's mother, though her original name was once Louise.
In Character
Image
Specifics
Full Name: Claire Rebecca Camden, formerly Driscoll, née Fitzwilliam
Nickname(s): Parental pet names galore, Clairey by some, Mum by others
Species: Angel
Birthdate: 21 April, 1967
Birthplace: Cape Town, South Africa
Hometown: Cape Town, South Africa/Kensington, London, England
Currently Resides: Cape Town, South Africa
Family: Mother, Ruth Fitzwilliam. Father, Charles Fitzwilliam. Siblings, Louise, Eleanor and Patrick. Husband, John Camden. Children, Avery, James, Bess with John Driscoll. Annabelle (adopted), Charlie and Adelaine with Johnny.
Sexuality: Straight
Relationship Status: Married to John Camden. Divorced from John Driscoll (1988 - 2006).
Schooling: Herschel Preparatory School, Royal Ballet School, Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (short courses)
Occupation: Former principle of the Royal Ballet, current manager/other things of the Fitzwilliam Diamond Company's Cape Town shop, and also a future ballet teacher at her own studio. But mostly a mother.
Detailed Information
Physical Description
Claire is about 5'10" and has some of the body of the ballet dancer she was for two decades. A swanlike neck and very graceful features, but due to motherhood and time, she has filled out what was once a rather thin physique. She has long (long) light blonde, wavy hair and fair skin. Her eyes are a pale blue color, and her nose is freckled.
Physically, she has not-too-big bust size (your classic upper C cup), a very narrow back that gives the illusion of being rather thin (not sickly thin as she once was, but just thin), double-jointed fingers and legs (she was able to hyperextend her legs quite efficiently just naturally), and natural turn out (not 180 degrees as some lucky people are blessed with at birth--she had to work for that). Her posture is very upright, retained from dancing, and she rarely slouches or stands with her feet turned in.
She doesn't usually wear make up and takes great care to dress nicely every day. Dresses are a staple, though she can be spotted in white linen trousers, and engineer overalls whilst pregnant.
Thank the fact that she's an angel for her hauntingly beautiful appearance. Thank the feeling she gives people when around them for any attraction, really.
(She appears as though she is around twenty one years of age, though her general aura is rather mature and "old" and this can make her seem closer to her actual age of forty.)
Personal Information
Claire loves, above all things, being a mother. She has all that money could buy and has the resources to buy even more, but she truly loves only what her family gives her: completion.
She is an average cook, capable of managing basic dishes that your average mother can, but doesn't often find herself cooking at all, what with three cooks to do it for her. However, she tends to do a lot of chores, despite the fact that their family has help.
In addition to that interesting hobby, Claire is also a philanthropist, giving millions to schools, government projects and the local theatres. She is a benefactor of the Cape Town City Ballet, Artscape, the Cape Philharmonic Orchestra and the Royal Ballet.
She speaks English and Afrikaans fluently, as well as a fair amount of Xhosa, Southern Sotho, Tswana, and Zulu. The latter four she picked up during her years as a teacher and volunteer in townships across South Africa (she is nowhere near fluent in any of them, however). French was her least favorite school subject, but she knows a bit out of necessity due to her position in The Fitzwilliam Diamond Company.
On a more materialistic note, Claire is extremely into fashion and collects hats, antique and new, and sunglasses. (And shoes.) She has hundreds of hats and hundreds of pairs of sunglasses. And we won't go into how many pairs of shoes. She is also rarely seen in jeans, preferring dresses and skirts or linen trousers, if she must wear trousers. She likes being comfortable. But her rather expensive taste in clothing has led her to having close relationships with top designers, such as Giorgio Armani, Stefano Gabbana, Domenico Dolce and Karl Lagerfeld. She has been called a "muse" for some, and in the 1980s, when she and her sisters were frequently photographed for magazines, there were fashions created after each of them. She does have a Marc Jacobs bag named after her but, ironically, she doesn't own it.
Her love for clothes is really as shallow and wonderful as it comes. A room next to the master bedroom was converted into her closet. Yeah, it's that big.
Also, most of the time her hair is loosely up in a bun at the nape of her neck, with flyaway pieces all over. She would control those flyaway pieces, but, she can't. Who can? In any case, she's rarely seen with it down. Down often means vulnerable, even if this is not a conscious decision she makes.
Claire was a ballet dancer from the age of four until her first pregnancy, when she was twenty one. She danced at the Royal Ballet School and was accepted into the company as an apprentice at fifteen, and soon promoted to a member of the corps. She still loves to dance, her time as principal with RB very short, and she would love to dance professionally again. She will eventually start her own school.
She drives this, her father's Rolls Royce given to her on her eighteenth birthday (she didn't know how to drive at the time).
Backstory
Claire Rebecca Camden (formerly Driscoll, née Fitzwilliam) was born 21st April, 1967 in Cape Town, South Africa to Charles (“Charlie”) and Ruth Fitzwilliam. She is the oldest of four children, with two younger sisters called Grainne Louise (“Louise”) and Eleanor, and one younger brother called Patrick.
Born into a life of privilege and rich heritage, as well as possessing a special inheritance that no amount of money their family’s diamond and jewelry company could buy, Claire spent the very earliest years of her life welcoming new siblings and attending an all-girls school near her home. She enjoyed school thoroughly and was quite intelligent, but nothing compared to her love for ballet, which her mother, a former ballerina herself, enrolled her in at the age of four.
Talented and in love with the dance form, Claire spent a great deal of her first ten years practicing religiously and doing little else. She also enjoyed musical theatre for a time, performing in every play her school put on (that she could be in). Her first aspiration was to be a Broadway star. When dancing overtook theatre as she got older, ballet replaced Broadway.
She is and has always been incredibly approachable and understanding, possessing the sympathy to get along with and soothe any troubled souls, and this was no different when her brother was born with brittle bone disease and an extremely weak immune system. Claire was only six years old at the time of his birth, but her youngest sibling took an immediate and almost unusual liking to his sister. A need, really, to be around her. He never cried while in her arms, never showed any signs of discomfort if she was there to sing and to talk and to distract him as he returned from hospital stay after hospital stay. Most of the time, anyway.
At two, Patrick’s benevolence and general toddler indifference to the disease that bound him turned into something darker. He went from accepting the soothing care of his family to rejecting it. At five, the time his homeschooling began, Claire was the only person he would allow near him for nearly four months, but even this was inconsistent and he was not at all kind. His anger at being locked up and forbidden from attending a normal school left a bruising mark. From the age of four until puberty, Patrick was a volatile, self-destructive young boy. And Claire was there for every moment he allowed her to be.
Despite, or perhaps because of her brother's unhappy state, Claire turned her childhood into a fairytale. As a toddler, she loved seeing her papa's wings and was upset that she had none of her own, so a collection was soon started and by the time she was ten, Claire had dozens of wings of various types and sizes and often wore a pair when exploring and playing. She was very imaginative, taking her knack for storytelling from her papa and grandmama, and loved it when her nanny, Augusta, took her and her sisters to where she lived. There were elephants where Augusta lived, but there was violence, too.
Claire's room in Cape Town was gold and silk and lace and fluff. Cluttered with canopies and drapery and trunks filled with toys. It was a haven for her to play pretend.
At eleven, Claire auditioned for and won a spot in the Royal Ballet School. But at eleven, with Patrick in such a bad way and her siblings relatively young for such a move, she was denied the chance to go to London to attend. The denial of the very catalyst that would propel her into the world of ballet caused Claire to retreat angrily into her own hatred for the decision. How was it that now she was being told she could not do something when she had been so eager and so dedicated for seven years?
Because Claire was no novice. She was gifted, gifted in a way that made it impossible for her parents to say no to her when, at thirteen, Claire was accepted into RBS once again. With the dangerous state South Africa was in at the time and Claire threatening to fly to England on her own (and no one doubting that she would, at least, get to the airport), her family made the difficult decision to pack up their home and move to London.
1980 – 1988
The fact that they had essentially moved for Claire did not escape her sisters. They had both been enrolled in ballet, but neither took to it for more than a few years. Louise was into tap dance and later Irish dance and Eleanor took violin lessons, but neither were as focused on their talents in a way that made them want to turn such things into careers. Louise dropped both as she got older, and Eleanor kept music on the backburner. Altering their lives so that Claire could have a shot at a company was not something the girls, Louise especially, were willing to readily accept.
Claire’s parents tried to make the conflict in South Africa the main component for their relocation. They padded this excuse with the common knowledge that their extended family relocated back to England for the very same reason and they would now get to see their grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins on a regular basis. Louise said that Claire was the favorite, and for the first year after the move, she distanced herself from her sister in protest.
This resentment within her own family and the changes of moving to a new country and attending a new school (and being told off-hand that she was a "late starter" at RBS) created a vast amount of stress for Claire. The first year in England saw her feeling extremely pressured to do better than ever and to prove her sister wrong. Coupled with the onset of puberty and Claire’s own development, she began to suffer from anorexia. She was no dancer if she wasn’t starving.
Anxiety began to bite back, however. At fourteen, she suffered a nervous breakdown and nearly quit the program and dancing altogether. She was hospitalized for some time due to her malnourishment, and then underwent therapy for several exhausting weeks. But one look at the fact that her family had moved so far away to support her, one look at all she had accomplished and the simple fact that ballet had been the one thing that made her feel free for nine years, saved her. She shrugged off the insecurities and moved on. (Her struggles with her weight, however, never went away.)
Besides, she was incredibly talented and such a waste it would have been if she had left the dance behind. Her parents had always supported her willingness to push herself further, and their refusal to let her join RBS at a younger age didn't at all restrict her from international competitions. In 1981, she received a gold medal at the International Ballet Competition. She won the Prix de Lausanne shortly after her breakdown, in 1982, followed that same year with a gold medal at the USA International Ballet Competition.
She would have kept competing, but at fifteen, Claire became an apprentice with the Royal Ballet Company. She was placed into the corps for the 82/83 season. Her professional career, as it were, ended her competitive career.
The first friend Claire made in London was Avery Murdoch. They met in 1980 when both were freshly thirteen. He was, Claire later found out, gay. But she didn’t care. Why would she? In the early 80s, with the AIDS scare all around them, Avery needed friends, not enemies. And the pair was nearly-inseparable best friends by the time they turned fourteen.
Shortly before her fifteenth birthday, Claire acquired her first "boyfriend". He was the oldest son of one of the friends of her family, and was called Walter. Walter and Claire lasted for just about two weeks and quite possibly never really dated at all. They certainly never went on one. It was said that Claire was simply confusing the fact that Walter fancied her with actually being asked out. She never was, and he held her hand once and kissed her cheek twice (once for hello, once for goodbye — at least three days before they were supposedly going out, a common guesture). Whatever they were, he was done with it soon after and Claire suffered no heartbreak and no memory of whatever time they had together.
Soon after her apprenticeship began, however, she fell into a somewhat proper relationship. Proper only in that she was formally asked out and taken on numerous dates for a period of four months. The boy was called Hunter and was a talented dancer from her school. They started as partners in pas de deux, and had a very nice relationship that had Claire confused enough to think she may have loved him.
It dissolved in the autumn when he went on to the Upper School and started to feel jealous about the fact that Claire had received an apprenticeship before he had and, on top of that, she wasn’t putting out and barely endured kissing him (she never even kissed him on the mouth).
Despite the fact that Claire had perhaps loved him, she was not entirely upset when he never talked to her again. It did, however, jade her appreciation for relationships and she stopped caring about having a boyfriend. Not that she ever really cared so much as wanted to feel worthwhile after her pitiful first year in London. At fifteen, with such a busy dancing career, it wasn’t even necessary to seek acceptance anymore.
However, on 28th November, 1982, she was blindsided by John (“Jack”) Camden, a punk boy from Avery's East End school with a torn up leather jacket and a hideous American car. Claire expected to not even like him, but she was very wrong.
Jack turned into her steady boyfriend. Her first real, authentic, truly important relationship. The only one where the battle of her virginity raged inside of her head. The only one where she considered surrendering. The only one where she did surrender, though of course it wasn’t right away.
They dated for over a year and a half. In that time, Claire became a soloist at RB, fell in love, sprained her ankle, was invited to join the American Ballet Theatre and the New York City Ballet, and was involved in a car crash.
In 1984, Jack was arrested and sentenced to three years in prison for assault and battery.
That was the day that Claire’s life ended.
After Jack’s arrest, Avery was the only person Claire had outside of her family. Avery took his role in her mental recovery quite seriously. Claire was not okay and did not pretend to be okay, which was rather out of character for her. Her dancing suffered and she considered quitting again. It was not interesting to her. But Avery knew that was a lie.
He supported her until she made it to principal in 1985, the youngest in RB's history until former classmate Darcey Bussell nearly matched her after Claire retired in 1989. Though she had met Kenneth MacMillan in 1980, he began reworking roles and creating new ones for Claire as soon as she became a principal. A third choreography was never danced by her and was given to and reworked for Darcey Bussell.
Also in 1985, Claire started taking classes at The Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, taking short classes and not pursuing certification, but wanting to improve her stage presence. She simply wanted to fill up every moment of solitude and free time with busywork and distraction.
About this time, Louise had become quite a notorious piece in the papers, chronicles of her sexual exploits a common occurrence (she dated a string of super- and semi-famous people). Combined with the fact that she was beautiful and had two equally haunting sisters, the three were often photographed for fashion magazines and lifestyle magazines and Claire did a series of interviews about her career. The Sisters Fitzwilliam, as they were known, had impacted the London fashion scene quite unintentionally.
Additional education or college had never been a part of her plans, a part of her goals. She had an entire diamond fortune that now amassed tens of billions of pounds. Her trust fund would become hers when she hit eighteen. She was secure in the family business, secure in her spot at RB (or eagerly awaiting another go at ABT), and was being mentored by her mother's former classmate and English assoluta, Margot Fonteyn. But losing Jack had shaken the very foundation she had built herself up on. Without that foundation, she was no longer secure at all. Distraction and rebuilding with new materials became key and uni afforded that to her as nothing else had. She continued to dance, did show after show after show with RB, and in late 1985, at the 85/86 season opening gala, she met the second John who would change her life forever.
Jonathan (“John”) Driscoll was in his final year of law school at the University of Oxford, and had simultaneously quit working under his father and opened up his own firm, and was eight years Claire’s senior. He met her informally, his parents hounding him to meet the eighteen-year-old dancing heiress. She was in a magazine. Isn’t she beautiful?
John certainly thought so.
He could not get her out of his mind, and it was quite a surprise that he ran into her in a cafe after Claire turned nineteen. They began a very odd friendship, one separated by eight years of life and goals that could not even compare. But John was the only man Claire had considered opening herself up to since Jack’s arrest, and Avery encouraged her, saying that his life was more appropriate for her, anyway. She needed stability now. Security.
Avery was right.
Unfortunately, Avery wouldn’t live to see it.
In the 80s, amidst the AIDS crisis, Avery’s reputation was being soiled outside of school. Some people looked badly at Claire for her acceptance and love of the young man. The windows of her flat were broken on a couple occasions, Claire's tires slashed out front. John often found himself spending the night in order to protect her. Avery spent the night in order to protect himself. Claire took the position of a mother, as Avery’s own mother had disowned him after he came out, and often checked up on her best friend if he was out.
In early 1987, at a gay bar in London, Claire stopped in with Avery as they usually did whenever Claire had a free evening. They would often go out together and sometimes, if the situation turned rough, Claire would be the beard. But this particular night was different.
The difference was the men knew that Avery was gay and there was nothing Claire could do to stop their taunts except take Avery’s arm and hurry to his car. But it didn’t work. The men grabbed him and pulled her away. Afraid they would attack her, as well, Claire screamed for help as the patrons of the bar tried to stop the men. But shots were fired as Claire looked on, unable to stop what was happening before her.
Avery was dead before the police and ambulance even arrived. Dead before Claire could run back and hold him.
The second loss in three years. But this one greater than the last.
Claire remembers the thunderstorm that drowned London, remembers the hallucinations the attackers claimed drove them to turn themselves in shortly after the murder, but she remembers Avery’s blood on her clothes more clearly than that. And she will never forget.
If she had been depressed after Jack’s arrest, Avery’s death virtually knocked over all Claire had left to keep her head above water. She had lost Jack, and she had lost Avery. John and her family were always there, but her dancing suffered to the point where she took a small hiatus. But instead of focusing on her grief, John helped pull her back onto her toes. Unfortunately, Claire took to them and ran.
She spent the season at Kirov, living with her aunt Marion. John visited her, planning the wedding during his stays, and when her time ended, she returned to England.
That very same year, he proposed.
They were married in London in a giant cathedral at the insistence of John’s conservative parents. Rumors buzzed that this meant the end of her career, and those rumors were confirmed in late 1988. Claire had discussed moving back to the Cape Town estate with Jack, and now she brought it up with John. He agreed, and soon they were packing up their lives and moving back to the place Claire had once called home. Claire began working at missionaries and orphanages in the townships — and found herself pregnant within the first year.
Happily pregnant, in fact. She officially retired from RB in 1989.
1988 – Present
She gave birth to Avery Fitzwilliam Driscoll on 4th June, 1989. He was born two months early during a holiday in India. They stayed in India for an additional two months to make certain that Avery could handle the long flight back home.
Whilst Claire knew her son wouldn’t die, seeing him so small and helpless rekindled the fire that motivated her to take care of her ailing brother for so many years. With her brother now healthy, thanks to his angelic manifestations at puberty, the images of Jack in court and Avery’s blood on the pavement were what truly pushed her forward.
Claire had the motivation. All she had to do was look at Avery’s tiny fingers wrapped around her thumb, and she knew that John was right: There was no use in grieving. She would not be able to rest until she had done all that she could to make others happy.
That included herself.
And to do that required to forget Jack.
She had left his photos in London before the move and told her parents not to speak of him. It was time to get over everything. He had not come back for her after his release. Perhaps he had never been released. Claire didn’t know and didn’t want to care. She was a mother and a wife now and had other concerns to deal with.
Two years later, and two years of constant devotion to a school in the townships of Cape Town (such devotion that her own baby was under the care of a live-in nanny on the days when she didn’t bring him in with her), she became pregnant again and had her second child, Jameson Francis Driscoll, on 16th October, 1991.
Both children were taught Afrikaans, but Avery’s nanny, who was poor in English, had used it around an infant Avery so much that it became Avery’s first language, and John fired her. Claire stayed home, only volunteering on occasion, and raised her two boys with more care than she had realised she was capable of giving. Putting them into lessons and finding their passions as Claire had hers was first and foremost in her mind.
Three years after that, Claire became pregnant again, and this time, she had a girl. Elizabeth Renee Driscoll was born on 8th March, 1995.
With three children, working outside the estate was not something she wanted to do anymore, so she donated money and time when she could and concentrated on raising her kids. On occasion, she would bring them into the townships and let them play while she taught or simply spent time with the people there.
It was when Avery was eight that John said he wanted the boys to attend Eton. Claire’s own father had gone, but she was loath to have her babies be so far away, and she didn’t want to move. But when Avery didn’t reject the idea of going away (though he was only ten at the time anyone asked), Claire consented.
At twelve, Avery was accepted into the school and Claire did her best not to cry at his going-away party or as he boarded the plane the next day. But her best was hardly good enough.
What happened when her son went away still haunts her. Frank’s treatment of Avery has rooted her paranoia so deeply in her that she often suffers from nightmares. Especially after she found Avery face-down in his own blood. It flashed back to Avery’s namesake and the shotgun wounds that let her best friend’s blood flow freely.
Claire has, simply, a great fear of losing everyone important to her. An intense fear of spending eternity alone. But if she has to face that, she will only try harder to make her country a better place to live. She knows what sort of fortune she was born into and knows that she has it far better than most people on the planet, but it does not stop her from seeing the bad and seeing the good in everyone, and wanting to make things right.
The conflict with Avery crippled Claire’s marriage to John. He had issues with the fact that he was not ever going to match up to the boy that had stolen Claire’s heart so long ago. He often said he was not good enough, he often reminded Claire how many sacrifices he had made to make her happy. She fought with him almost constantly for two years, and by the third, and Avery’s final year at Eton before they withdrew him, they were on very brittle ground. Divorce seemed likely.
They held on for a year, and during that year, Avery brought his boyfriends, Jack and Jake, to live with them. It was not an official move-in, but Jack had nowhere else to go. John and Claire barely interacted, but it was clear that there was a certain amount of resentment. Resentment that grew when Annabelle, Jack’s young sister, came to stay with them from time to time.
She was raised by a nanny and Claire wished that she could provide the home that this little girl never had. In 2006, Claire began to hint at adoption. John refused, saying that he wanted his family to heal before it was expanded once more. He didn’t want anymore children. His age had a great deal to do with it and his wariness at sending James off to Eton in autumn of 2005 made him reluctant to distract himself.
Claire resented his inflexibility and pleaded with him until their fights over Annabelle erupted in front of the children. Divorce now seemed inevitable.
In February of 2006, Claire began to take a keen interest in Avery's older boyfriend, Jack. Was it because of the name? Was it because of her crumbling relationship? Jack had always been in awe of her, too timid to call her anything but “Missus Driscoll”, despite how many times Claire said to call her by her first name. His endearing qualities led Claire to have what she thought was a silly little crush on a pretty little school boy. Names were irrelevant.
But in March, when Jack cheated, and this time with a girl, Claire was oddly heartbroken. Avery’s desperation for keeping Jack by his side culminated when he asked Claire if he would take Jack.
Taken aback, Claire was unable to provide an answer for Avery’s plea. It felt like a massive betrayal to her son, to Jake, to her husband. But her arguments were growing brutal and Claire was, despite herself, incredibly lonely.
She eventually agreed and she and Jack fell into an intense affair that carried right through the filing of her divorce papers. But things were not simple, were not good. The relationship went from sex to something far too deep, too needy. The conflict with the girl with whom Jack cheated began to fuel a depression that sank the mood of everyone in the house. One cannot escape the moods of an angel, after all.
Trying to keep her family together when the news of the divorce broke proved even more difficult. James had been so far removed that he reacted with extreme hostility, telling Claire that he hated her, telling Avery that he hated him.
On top of that, she discovered that she was pregnant.
A life that had once been so good and so perfect was now crumbling beneath her feet. She lost the baby under the crushing weight of the stress, John moved out and back to England, and it seemed that nothing would ever right itself again.
They did try. Claire picked herself up and dusted herself off and pushed onward, feeling empty and alone and not wanting to continue the affair, as it had gone so wrong. For a few weeks, they did. But in May of 2006, at Jack’s birthday party, not only did Jack cheat again, he cheated two days later, once again with a girl.
This final blow pushed Avery into a frozen coma that left Claire traumatized. Her only baby, the love of her life, frozen and lifeless with his eyes wide open. When he finally managed to come out of it (see Avery's backstory for more information), she could barely breathe. This proved the lowest point of her mental state, possibly since the loss of her best friend decades earlier, and she felt lost and out of her own control.
She went to Sophie's wedding to Domani in July 2006, where she had a truly terrible time holding herself together and was grateful that John came with her. At this point, she would have almost given up on intentions to divorce and gone back to him. He talked to her for hours that night, trying to see why she had gone down this rocky path and what was going on underneath, but she couldn't bring herself to tell him about Jack, and Jack had become somewhat of a danger to her, emotionally. But John held her and they slept together that night, both of them knowing it would simply be the end and neither of them quite wanting it as much as they had before.
He stayed at the estate with her, helping to shuttle the girls to school, when, suddenly, everything changed when, a few days after returning from Italy, Jack Camden showed up at her door. And this time, she wasn't going to let him get away. It was a startling appearance, one that left her feeling a dozen things all at once. But almost instantly, the love she had thought she had rid herself of returned as strong as ever.
It was during August that she finally separated herself from the affair with Jack. Now she knew she'd have love to face when it was over, and her Jack could, for the first time ever, take care of her.
They became engaged in September 2006.
The months following it included the birth of Sophie's daughter, Ava, which fueled Claire's unending desire to have another child, and a relative calm that no one had ever felt before. Whilst planning the wedding, Claire went a bit manic, but it was the best insanity she could have ever experienced. Jack Dickon created her wedding dress. Her family flew in. She finally got her outdoors, barefoot wedding.
On 3 December, 2006, they were married. Immediately following the ceremony, they jetted off on their honeymoon. Claire's neverendng quest to open her Jack up to new experiences.
On 12 December, 2006, Claire found out she was pregnant whilst in Aguilla, part of the two week honeymoon world tour.
It was soon discovered at the five week ultrasound, that she was pregnant with twins. This news elated her, but gave her reason to pause: she had never had twins before. Still, undaunted, she was the most excited she had been since her wedding. There were, however, a few small roadbumps.
In March of 2007, Jack began therapy after he told Claire, when she witnessed a nightmare of his after crawling into his dream, that his mother not only physically abused him, which she knew, but sexually abused him, and had others assist her. Horrified, stunned, Claire grappled with the news the best she knew how and soon Carrie was trying to open Jack up in their weekly meetings. But they had to go to London and the therapy was cut short, something that Claire wanted remedied.
She turned forty on 21 April and had a huge celebration at an old countryside palace. The theme was French Revolution and everyone dressed in their best. Claire's very pregnant belly made her look a bit like a pink layer cake. The party was also jointly Annabelle's, whose ninth birthday was just before.
After returning back to Cape Town, they began working on the nursery. Sophie painted a fancy mural on the ceiling and wall, and the furniture was finally set up. Only Claire knew the genders of the twins, leaving Jack to worry about whether or not he was about to raise two girls.
At the end of June, they headed back to London for the end of James' term at Eton. Claire intended to give birth there, and they began to work on the house, fixing it up, as it was rather unlived in (Claire had purchased it a year earlier due to her constant trips to London).
After briefly going to America to attend Kita MacGruder's wedding, Claire began to have severe backaches, and on Friday, 13 July, she went into labor and had to be taken to the clinic by taxi, as Jack had deconstructed their car in an effort to change its transmission from automatic to manual. She'll never let him live that one down.
Charlies Alexander Camden was born at 11.54PM, weighing 4lbs 15oz. His sister followed shortly after at 11.58PM, weighing slightly more at 5lbs 3oz.
Within days, they were shown off at a family reunion and the family headed home to Cape Town, where her newest hurtle was trying to get Jack to warm up to the idea of father. Her desire for him to seek therapy again rose tenfold. He generally seemed unable to function and left Claire to do most of the parenting. By the time autumn came, her fears that she had married someone as afraid of parenthood as John were consuming her daily activities. She was nervous that she had done something very stupid in having children so soon, but then Jack seemed to realize what had happened. How she was feeling. That he was being cut out of his children's lives--that he was removing himself from his children's lives.
So he began to be more proactive and Claire felt a great sense of relief.
Until Michael Warren broke out of prison and found his way to her, kidnapping her in October 2007. While she held her own against him and he caused her no harm, when Jack finally got to them, he shot Warren at point-blank range, killing him instantly. This led to a trial that began in 2008, and Jack was represented by Bianca Wernher. Naturally, he got off with community service.
Their next mutual job is opening up two places. Claire is focusing on opening her dance school, and Jack is making a center for abused boys to come and get help and companionship, something he never got.
But she's still the happiest she's been in a long time.
Backstory: Simplified
Claire was born in Cape Town, South Africa, the oldest of four siblings. She lived the first thirteen years of her life there before moving with the rest of her family to London, England, to support her admission into the Royal Ballet School. She met Avery Murdoch, who became her best friend until his murder a few years later. She also met John Camden, a London punk who became her first and one of only two serious boyfriends. Her second serious boyfriend became her husband, John Driscoll, after John Camden's arrest in 1984.
She had three children, Avery, James and Bess, and worked heavily through the townships in South Africa, becoming a philanthropist once she ended her career as a principal dancer with the Royal Ballet.
After her oldest son's rocky terms at Eton, she became a slightly jaded woman, especially because the drama had taken a toll on her seemingly wonderful marriage with John Driscoll. They divorced in 2006, after eighteen years of marriage, and remain good friends.
Also in 2006, Claire was involved in a bizarre affair with Jack Dickon, which she ended after John Camden showed up at her door on 31 July, 2006.
They became engaged in September 2006.
Two months later, on 3 December, 2006, they were married.
On 12 December, 2006, Claire found out she was pregnant whilst in Aguilla, part of the two week honeymoon world tour.
It was soon discovered at the five week ultrasound, that she was pregnant with twins.
Charles Alexander and Adelaine Briony Camden were born near midnight on July the 13th.
Dancing Years: Broken Down
Schooling
1971 - 1980: University of Cape Town Ballet School
1980 - 1985: Royal Ballet School
Professional Career
1982 - 1983: Member of the corps of the Royal Ballet Company
1983 - 1984: Soloist of the Royal Ballet Company
1985 - 1988: Principal of the Royal Ballet Company
Awards
1981: Adeline Genée Gold Medal Award
1981: Gold Medal - Moscow International Ballet Competition
1982: Winner - Prix de Lausanne
1982: Gold Medal - USA International Ballet Competition
1986: Sir Laurence Olivier Award (for Giselle)
Roles Danced
Professional
Apprentice/Corps de ballet (82/83): Snowflake (Nutcracker), Flower (Nutcracker), one of the four swans (Swan Lake), Giselle, La Bayadère, Ballet Imperial, Manon, A Month in the Country, Rhapsody, The Rake's Progress, Checkmate
Soloist (83/84, 84/85): Lead flower (Nutcracker), Lilac Fairy (Sleeping Beauty), Tchaikovsky pas de deux, Sugar Plum Fairy (Nutcracker), Ballet Imperial, Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Coppélia (Coppélia), Gamzatti (La Bayadère), Ballo Della Regina, The Rite of Spring
Principal (85/86, 86/87, 87/88): Auora (Sleeping Beauty), Lilac Fairy (Sleeping Beauty), Cinderella (Cinderella), Clara (Nutcracker), Sugar Plum Fairy (Nutcracker), Swanilda (Coppélia), Birthday Offering, Nikiya (La Bayadère), Gamzatti (La Bayadère), Juliet (Romeo and Juliet), Giselle (Giselle), Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Tatiana (Onegin), Hermann Schermann Kitri (Don Quixote), Medora (Le Corsaire), The Sylph (La Sylphide), Ballet Imperial, Lise (La Fille mal gardée), A Month in the Country, Manon (Manon), Firebird (The Firebird), In the Middle, Step Text, Mary Vetsera (Mayerling), Other Dances, Apollo, Raymonda, La Luna, Grand Pas Classique, The Dying Swan
Guest Artist (at Mariinsky/Kirov Ballet): Odette/Odile (Swan Lake), Chloé (Daphnis et Chloé), Ondine (Ondine), Giselle (Giselle)
Roles Created
Sir Kenneth MacMillan created roles in Mayerling and Cinderella for Claire. A role in The Prince of the Pagodas was created for her but she did not dance in it.
External Links
Claire's Journal
The Encyclopaedia of Claire and Jack
Very Detailed Back/Currentstory
Adage: Claire's Girlhood Diary
Over 100 Things About Claire
Act II: A semi-novel set after the close of Adage
Claire @ ballet.co
Claire @ The Ballerina Gallery
London Times article from 1985
CLAIRE&JACK
