Zany and poppy outside their caravan home in Holden Forest, Exeter.

Bite mark from boss's relative.

This is Zany’s story. Zany is a twelve-year-old girl growing up on a traveller’s site in South Devon, both parents are addicts. I befriended Zany whilst visiting the site to photograph another project and I was struck by her strength of character the resilience she has, but also her vulnerability as a child about to become a young woman. I wanted to make a series of portraits that give an insight into her world. Her freedom, being able to explore where she likes, leading a gang of other children and using the site as their playground. The secret places where she goes to watch deer, the joy of eating cake mixture without baking, the many pets she keeps and then loses to the site dogs. With an absence of conventional parental care Zany is making her own path to adulthood.