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What made me the way I am?

In our regular column inviting contributors to reflect on how their past has affected their current life,
award winning documentary maker, Summer Avery, reflects on how her family history influenced her
choice of career.
My parents came from totally different backgrounds. My dad, Dave, comes from a mining village in
Yorkshire. For generations, all the boys in his family went down the pit and that's what dad was going to
do, too. But in the 1980s they started closing down the mines and suddenly there was no work for young
men like my dad. My mum, Lucy, came from a very different family. Her father was a diplomat, Mum went
to boarding school because her parents lived abroad. They expected her to go to Oxford or Cambridge
University and then do an important job, but she was a rebellious girl.
The early 1980s in the UK was a time of great change. Big industries were closing down and people from
communities like my dad's were losing their jobs and their hope. But in other places, new enterprises
were starting up and some people were getting very rich very quickly.
These changes led to political protests and some people rejected mainstream lifestyles altogether. Among
those people were the 'New Age Travellers.' They lived in old lorries and buses and travelled from one
music festival to another. These lorries and buses used to travel together in convoys and they were
unpopular with many people. The police kept breaking up the convoys and closing down the festivals. The
travellers kept regrouping and planning more festivals. There used to be a very popular free festival at
Stonehenge* on Summer Solstice*. In 1985, the Travellers were determined to hold this festival and huge
numbers joined the convoys. Two of the people who went to join the peace convoy were my mum, who
had decided to run away from school and my dad, who had decided to escape unemployment by going on
the road. That is where they met - when they were arrested at Stonehenge! It's funny to think that they
would never have met if they hadn't gone to that festival.
They were only seventeen years old. I was born exactly one year later on Summer Solstice 1986 – that's
why they called me Summer. Both families were really shocked and disappointed. I didn't even meet my
grandparents until I was seven. When I was little we travelled round Europe in an old double-decker bus.
My dad's a talented musician and my mum was good at gymnastics, so they joined this strange alternative
circus called 'Anarkurkus'. There were no animals or any of the usual circus things – just human
performers doing really crazy things.
I didn't have a very conventional way of life as a child. I didn't go to school. We never ate meat. We went
to lots of music festivals and political demonstrations. I learned a lot about being an outsider. In some
places people were really hostile. There was no need for this; everyone in our circus was very gentle and
very honest. People are just afraid of difference. I'm sure it is this early experience that made me
interested in how society treats minority groups. I doubt I'd be so interested in social exclusion if I hadn't
experienced it. It has been the subject of all my films.
When I was seven my dad got news that his mother was seriously ill. They returned to the UK and made
peace with their families. We lived in a house and I went to school. I was really excited to have my own
bedroom and eat normal food like cornflakes at my cousin's houses. When I started school I could read

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and juggle much better than the other kids – and my knowledge of European geography was way ahead of
theirs! I'm sure I wouldn't have known so much at that age if my parents had been more conventional.
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*Stonehenge is a 5,000 year old monument in southern England. Summer Solstice (21 st June) is the
longest day of year in the northern hemisphere. On the Summer Solstice the sun is aligned with the stones
so that light shines through the arches at dawn. Druids still go to Stonehenge on 21 st June to celebrate the
summer solstice.

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