Assignment A – Materials
MATERIAL 1 - READING TEXT.
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 dads 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.
© 2020 The TEFL Academy. All rights reserved.
1
MATERIAL 1 - READING TEXT.
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 dads 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.
© 2020 The TEFL Academy. All rights reserved.
1
