Tom and Pender Buckley
Tom and Pender Buckley live on their family's caravan site just outside St. Neots in Cambridgeshire. They've lived their since they were born.
Like most Travellers they love their animals: Pender is getting interested in breeding dogs, and Tom keeps Japanese chickens.
But what makes Tom and Pender stand out is that they've just finished recording a radio drama series about Travellers for the BBC.And they're not new to the business, either: they'd already acted in a series last year.
The boys relished the chance join in making a realistic drama about Travellers.
“Normally when you see Travellers in films, you'll think: ‘That's not right,’ silly little things like I saw one programme where a boy was letting a dog lick his plate. It's not right,” says Pender.
“It's in the way they talk, the things they do, their reactions”, says Tom.Atching Tan is airing on BBC radio stations across the East of England this autumn, as well as on the BBC website. And thousands of people will hear Tom and Pender playing Travellers on the airwaves. Does that make them nervous?
“I'd get nervous acting in a film”, says Tom. “But doing it through speech isn't so bad. They've got no proof it's you!”
“We got the chance to work with professional actors. It was really good”, says Pender.
And we hope to hear more from Tom and Pender, and other talented young Travellers, in the future.