The former undercover journalist who wants to champion Southampton

FROM helping to uncover the conditions in orphanages in her native Romania to covertly filming criminal gangs, Claudia Murg has led a rich and varied life.

And she firmly believes that there are many more people in Southampton who, like her, have a fascinating story to tell, which is one of the reasons why she has left her career as a multi-award-winning investigative journalist behind, and instead drives her own bus around the city she now calls her home, inviting people to board it and tell their stories.

Claudia describes herself as a Communist baby, having frown us in a country where thinking for oneself was not encouraged.

When the regime fell in 1989, Claudia, like many around her, discovered realities about her country, of which she had been completely unaware.

And the more she found out, the more she wanted to know, and to share with others.

Claudia's life was set off on a new course when, in January 1990, she met a team of British investigative journalists from a TV show called World in Action.

They were working with her neighbour, a press photographer for a local paper, and came to her house to borrow her parents' camcorder.

They included Andrew Jennings, who is now well-known for investigating corruption in the IOC and FIFA.

"I had a brief conversation, and said 'if you need any help, call me,'" she says.

"Three days later, he called me and I worked for the team translating interviews with five political prisoners. It required very delicate handling, and I think my background, working in a hospital and dealing with traumatised people, helped."

The team asked Claudia and another interpreter to go with them to another part of the country for three weeks, to help with an investigation.

"It was truly life changing," she says.

"For the first time I saw through the eyes of these journalists, some of the basic realities of my country. I remember seeing an orphanage and an institution where people with all sorts of disabled people were kept together, regardless of whether they had physical, mental or mental health issues.

"I struggled to keep the tears back and remember going outside to cry and Andrew saying 'today you cry; tomorrow you will fight.'

"I think that sowed the seeds of my becoming a campaigning community journalist."

After the World in Action team left Romania, Claudia became involved with a group of volunteers who set up and ran a local television news station. Andrew Jennings called her two or three times a week, to train her over the phone and Claudia had her own filming equipment and cash from her work as a translator, which allowed her to fund trips to report from different parts of the country.

Her reports included one in a tank, chasing after suspected terrorists.

"People in power didn't like that I was asking too many questions, and looked to discredit me," says Claudia.

She came to the UK in July 1990, intending to come for a two week holiday, and to then go on to visit friends in other parts of Europe.

But she didn't realise that she would need a visa to do this, so instead stayed in the UK, as she wanted to study.

She wrote to the Home Office to ask for a student visa, and when she was turned down decided to take her chances, and studied and worked in a chip shop illegally.

In summer 1992, she was set to return to Romania, when she met and fell in love with a British man who she married.

I found myself in a free country with residency and permission to work," she says.

"It was time to start working as a reporter. I had no idea where to start. I didn't want to go to the British journalists I'd met in Romania, as I didn't want to seem to to be taking advantage of our friendship.

"I met a TV producer who told me to get the BFI (British Film Institute) book. I had no idea what that was but found it in a shop and started hitting the phone. I called the MD of every company listed, and sent them a CV that makes me laugh now!"

Claudia was hired as a researcher for a production company investigating British charities possibly mismanaging funds in Romania.

"I went from earning £130 a week in the chip shop and sometimes having to go hungry to having an all expenses paid trip to Romania for Channel 4."

Claudia went on to work for World in Action, Dispatches, and Panorama, including spending eight months undercover as an asylum seeker, winning many top awards for investigations that she was involved in.

Then her career bought her to Southampton.

"I had had enough of living in London and commuting four hours a day from my home to central London, but Southampton was the last place on my mind. But I got a job here and then discovered that I was pregnant, and once you have a child, you start to put down roots."

Claudia gave birth a week after her contract ended. She had intended returning to television as soon as possible, but having a child changed her mind.

"My father was abroad for a lot of the time when I was growing up," she says.

"He was abroad for 17 of the first 2 years of my life. I didn't want that for my child.

"I did an MA and thought I would get into lecturing and began to work for (parenting and family support organisation) Family Lives, and got an insight into some of the problems that exist in Southampton."

Claudia also worked for a TV production company part time.

"My son tuned seven and a couple of days later, I flew off for a big project, and the following year, I hardly saw him," she says.

"I cam back thinking that this wasn't the kind of life I wanted. I also wanted to see the impact of my work. I knew that it was having an effect but I would work on each project for around a year and after it was over, that was that.

I wanted to do something that had a long lasting effect."

Claudia became involved in making a community response film to Immigration Street, began to get to know political leaders and other influential figures in the city and also started to come across all sorts of interesting people in the city who she hadn't known about.

She started going to two or three meetings in the city every week, to find out more about what was going on.She came up with the idea of creating a giant video library in the city, to help people to learn from one another. She also wanted to stage a mobile documentary film festival, and came up with the idea of buying a bus.

Luckily, she turned to an old contact of hers, Chrissy Bainbridge, who at the time was director of business at First Bus, to get some advice on getting a bus, and after talking through Claudia's ideas, Chrissy offered to supply a bus which had been sat in a depot for three years.

Claudia launched We Make Southampton 18 months ago, with the goal of making films about and for Southampton, to improve the future of the city's people.

This includes videos about people in power in the city but also on the ordinary citizens in the city.

"I've met so many interesting, inspiring and eccentric people in the city, but in Southampton we don't celebrate this enough," she says.

"We need to sell the people in Southampton. I try to keep a lid on my frustration at Southampton not having the image that it could have."

Claudia says that while her life is very different to a few years ago, she couldn't be happier.

"Some of the investigations I did were very heavy duty, things like following criminal gangs around. I wouldn't want to do that now," she says.

"Since starting We Make Southampton, I have been contented every single day. I have a sense of purpose and focus. I know I'm doing it for my city.

"Before, I felt quite lonely. At the end of each project, there would be a celebration, and then you would be staring into the abyss, wondering what you were going to do next.

"It didn't give me the strong sense of purpose that I have now.

"I feel absolutely connected to my city."