UK's first blind overseas ambassador: My sight loss helps me connect with people

Victoria Harrison and her guide dog, Otto, are heading to Slovenia in August

The UK's first fully-blind overseas ambassador tells BBC News her disability can help build relationships with influential people around the globe, ahead of taking up a role in Slovenia in August.

Victoria Harrison has until the summer to become fluent in Slovene before taking up her post in the capital city, Ljubljana.

Learning languages is any foreign diplomat's remit - but "disability prep", as she calls it, is unique to her situation.

Getting used to a new home and memorising new routes to work and local cafes with her guide dog, Otto, are just some of the tasks Victoria has on her list alongside her day job.

"In my first [foreign] posting, I didn't realise there was an amazing cafe very close to where I lived - because I'd walk past it and didn't know," she says.

• Grandad first in world to try sight-saving drug

• The blind Ukrainian amputee whose wife's voice kept him alive

• Partially sighted sport saved my life, says player

Born with normal vision, Victoria developed an eyesight condition that gradually worsened throughout her teens.

She eventually lost her sight after university.

"It wasn't always easy growing up with less good eyesight than other people," she says - but she never felt her condition would hold her back from her dream job, diplomacy.

As a teenager, TV reports on the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, sparked Victoria's interest in the world of foreign diplomacy.

She asked her father what a diplomat did and learned they "get paid to travel the world, learn languages and represent their countries".

"I thought that sounds fantastic," Victoria says.

'Really competitive'

In 1995, the Disability Discrimination Act, since replaced by the Equalities Act, was introduced to remove barriers faced by disabled people in employment.

A year later, Victoria's first chance to work at the Foreign Office came in the form of an undergraduate work-experience scheme. Her main concern about her ability to do the job was not based on her disability, but her own insecurities.

"I thought maybe I'm not clever enough. I didn't go to Oxbridge. It's really competitive," she says.

Victoria was inspired to become a diplomat after the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office offered Victoria the internship in Moscow - but when she revealed she was registered blind, "there was a kind of silence... at the other end of the phone".

"They then said, 'we don't have any blind people in our organisation'," she says.

Victoria remembers feeling "surprised" rather than "disheartened" by the phone call.

She had always thought being a junior, or a woman, were more likely to hold her back in her career than being blind.

The placement was confirmed a few days later.

'A novelty'

In 1997, Victoria got a permanent role in the Foreign Office - becoming the first person with a declared disability to join since the Disability Discrimination Act came into effect.

"I was a novelty," Victoria says.

"There weren't [other] people who had significant disabilities."

The Foreign Office was still finding its feet with the changes that came with the Act, and it took six months before Victoria was given a computer she could use.

"It wasn't that people didn't want to support me," she says.

"It was just the fact that this was an organisation where we were... very much building the plane as we were flying it."

Victoria, pictured hiking in Germany, has been interested in foreign diplomacy since her teenage years

Feelings of self-doubt crept in as Victoria noticed colleagues around her flourishing.

"I felt kind of frustrated because I thought I'm not able to show people that I'm actually as good as other people," she says.

"And I didn't really have a chance to prove the naysayers wrong."

Some people even suggested to Victoria she had been given the role only because of "tokenism" or to bolster equal-opportunity statistics.

• Disabled duo with 'impossible' dream in record bid

• Mum opens cafe after autistic son's job struggles

• Pole dancing changed my life, says woman with MS

Attitudes in the UK slowly started shifting - but two years later, when Victoria was trying to land her first posting abroad, some foreign embassies had surprising reactions to her disability.

She remembers one saying: "This person needs to speak the language of the country - and obviously, being blind, they won't be able to learn it."

Victoria has since been on foreign postings to Helsinki and Sarajevo and says each new country presents unique challenges.

But she finds people often have a natural curiosity about her - and being blind can help with making personal connections while navigating the delicate art of negotiation.

"I might need to take someone's arm to guide me to the way out of the meeting room," Victoria says.

"That sort of thing brings a human connection that actually can be really helpful in building relationships."

It will take time for Victoria and Otto to become familiar with the streets of Ljubljana (stock image)

That connection can also help Victoria at work in other ways.

She is often self-conscious at work events that involve dining - and can become preoccupied with worries about things such as knocking over a wine glass.

At one such dinner, someone in the UK foreign secretary's team noticed Victoria had picked up her knife and fork when the starter was served.

And they whispered to her it was soup, so she could grab her spoon instead.

"I just thought, 'Thank goodness for that,'" Victoria says.

"But it also allowed me to focus on the fact that I actually need to be following the conversation, in order to write a report."

'Just cringe'

Victoria was the first blind person to join the Foreign Office, the first blind diplomat to be posted overseas and, after landing the Slovenia role, is now the first to become a British ambassador.

But asked what it feels like to be a trail-blazer, she laughs.

"It makes me just cringe thinking about it," Victoria says. "Technically, yes, I've done a lot of firsts."

But she adds: "I don't like the word trail-blazer, because it sort of sounds like I've actually set out to be all of these things - and it's kind of just happened."