1 The death of my father

MY father was originally a Cistercian monk. He decided to leave the monastery though, and worked in a jeweller’s shop in Nottingham. This was where he met my mother, through the Catholic church in the city. She was working in Nottingham as a teacher, having moved from her home town of Montrose.

My childhood was actually pretty idyllic. I have a brother, Christopher, and a sister, Mary Jane, and the five of us had a good life together.

We moved to Chepstow in South Wales. That had been a huge change because we moved from a house with a garden to a shop that my parents bought. We lived above the shop, which was fine, but there was only one bedroom for the five of us. My parents did a pretty good job of dividing the space to suit our needs a bit better.

That happy childhood was shattered when my father died. I was only 11 years old when it happened and of course that meant it had a greater impact. That first major loss is always so difficult, but grieving his loss at that age was a major influence on my young life.

It couldn’t help but change how I viewed the world. At that early age I realised that terrible things could happen as well as good things.

2 Boarding school

WHEN I was 14, my brother and I went to boarding school, at Ratcliffe College near Leicester. I found it to be an extremely difficult experience. I had never been away from home, so to go from our family home to being in a dormitory, formed from an old converted chapel, living with 40 boys was a shock.

My brother and I were given assisted places to attend, which was something introduced by the Thatcher government. This meant all our fees were paid, so we were “lucky” to be able to go to a private school and get that education. It never felt that way. As soon as I arrived I wanted to leave, and I really never did settle.

3 Radio Leicester and a supportive teacher

WHEN I was in the Lower Sixth at Ratcliffe, I started to think that I would like to work in radio. At the time Radio Leicester had a youth programme and it seemed a good idea to get involved and see what it was all about. Luckily I had a supportive year tutor who was open to the idea of me doing this.

Leicester was about a 10-mile bus ride from the school, but he was open to me doing it to take part in these programmes.

It was straight in doing interviews. I think the first was something to do with Loughborough Steam Railway! I made a feature about that, which was exciting of course. For me it was a way to get out of the school, where I wasn’t happy, but also it opened my eyes to the possibilities of being able to work in broadcasting.

At the time I was also very interested in art and design, so I was torn between going into that or into journalism. I think that early freedom I was given, I was only 16 at the time, really opened my eyes to so many possibilities and I’m very grateful to that tutor for allowing me to it.

4 A video camera and another supportive teacher

ANOTHER teacher was instrumental in helping me to figure out what I would do eventually do. It was clear to him that I had absolutely no interest in playing rugby, but he managed to find a solution that suited everyone.

The father of a pupil was an executive at the Sony Corporation, so the school managed to hold of one of the very first Sony VHS video cameras. The teacher was sympathetic to my genuine lack of interest in the game, so he suggested that I could still take part by learning how to use the video camera and recording the games at the school. So I suppose that was my first use of a camera for me. It obviously planted a seed.

So, although Ratcliffe was a very difficult time for me, I did manage to take part in certain extra-curricular things that really helped towards what I do now.

5 Journalism college

FROM Ratcliffe I went to Newport in Gwent for a foundation art and design course. At the same time I also got a Saturday morning job at Top Shop, but not what you might think. Top Shop had an in store radio station and I became a DJ on that. My mother was really pushing me to get a grounding in journalism, saying, “You really don’t want to be a DJ Anthony?” and I would say “Yes, I really want to be a DJ!”.

My mother was instrumental in convincing me that journalism college was a good idea, so in 1989 I headed off to Darlington to do a diploma in radio journalism. I hadn’t been to university, unlike all of my fellow students who all had degrees and were all a few years older than me. It really opened up a whole new world for me.

I don’t know where the interest in working in broadcasting came from. Obviously my mother and father had absolutely no background in broadcasting, but their three children all went into that field. My brother is a BBC local radio presenter – he presents The Late Show, which broadcasts across several stations in the South West, and my sister Mary Jane also went into broadcasting and writing.

6 Capital Radio

THE course led to my first big job at Capital Radio. As a reporter I worked with big names like Chris Tarrant, who was doing the breakfast show at the time, and David “Kid” Jensen, who was doing the drivetime programme. One of the first things I was given to do was interview Kylie Minogue, which at such a young age was huge to me.

That gave me the start that led to a job at IRN, the radio arm of ITN, which supplied all the independent radio stations with news. Just from seeing him around the building, I got on quite well with the chief executive of ITN, who seemed to listen to ideas. He gave me some names at Channel 4 news and I made my first big news feature for them. I had previously had a short spell working on Top Gear for the BBC at Pebble Mill in Birmingham, but this was the first chance I had to develop and deliver my own feature for TV.

It was also the first time I saw the potential of new technology. The fact that you needed minimal equipment, but still go out and film, then edit yourself. I saw the potential in how it could change how it was working. I was looking for foothold in how to do that.

7 My mum’s death

MY mum died of Motor Neurone Disease when I was about 24. We would take turns in looking after her and, as difficult as that could be at that age, particularly when your career is starting, it must have been so much more difficult for her, having to receive care from her children.

Even though from her diagnosis to death was about 18 months, a relatively short time when you consider the length of time that someone like Stephen Hawking lived, it was still an incredibly tumultuous time. Even though you know that there’s absolutely no possibility that someone is going to recover, when they do die it’s still a mighty shock.

8 The Aga Khan Development Network

WHEN my sister Mary Jane was working in Scotland, she introduced me to her best friend’s husband Richard, who had just returned from Canada. Richard had been doing quite similar work to me, but at that time he was working for the Aga Khan Development Network. The Aga Khan is the leader of the Isma’ili community and at that time Richard had been commissioned to do a feature on the Aga Khan University in Pakistan. I began to work with him, which led to several years making films all around the world for the network, It was a great grounding and superb opportunity to travel.

9 The Trek

I HAD travelled extensively in Africa for the AKDV, and then I returned to do my own trip. It was there, in a village in Tanzania, that I got the inspiration to do a fundraising walk from Land’s End to John O’Groats. It was the year 2000 and it was a 1500-mile route, which I walked over 12 weeks from March 7. I also shot a 27-minute film of the trek.

It was a wonderfully free time, being out there on your own, not planning accommodation and almost making it up as I went along, was so liberating and I would love to do it all again, but on a much bigger scale. The difficulty is as you get older you don’t make the time for things like that.

10 Coming to Scotland

I HAD moved to Scotland and initially lived in Edinburgh, but it was clear I would be able to get more space by moving away, so I looked at Montrose, which I had always loved.

That move was instrumental in meeting the people who lead to the making of You’ve Been Trumped, the first Trump film, so the move changed everything in a really unpredictable way.

I was extremely concerned about how the residents of the Menie Estate were being treated by the Trump Organisation and by certain aspects of the media.

There were so many extraordinary turns of events, I had to decide the best way to tell the story and it turned out to be a documentary. It was the best way to get to the truth of what was going on and tell their side of the story.

The residents of the Menie Estate had a huge impact on me and still do. I think of them a great deal. What they’ve been through is a microcosm of what has played out on the world stage with Trump in the White House.

I had moved on to other films, including the Flint documentary, but there was talk of doing another Trump film before the election. We were going to call it “President Trump”, but at that point we thought it was just far too ridiculous a title...

The online Glasgow Film Festival presents the world premiere of Anthony Baxter’s new film Eye of the Storm, a portrait of one of Scotland’s most gifted painters, James Morrison, through the last two years of his life. It is available from athome.glasgowfilm.org from 6.15pm on Sunday, February 28 until 6.15pm on Wednesday, March 3