The human cannonball family

In the late 1960s, David Smith was a bored high school maths teacher in the US when he ran away to join the circus. He made his name as a gifted trapeze artist before deciding to build a cannon out of which he would be launched, and soar into the air at great speed. This new act, as 'Cannonball Smith', electrified audiences across America. As his reputation grew, so did his family, and together with his wife Jeannie he raised six children on the road. As soon as they could walk, they were swinging on trapezes and as teens they got their first experience of getting shot out of a cannon themselves. Five of his children went on to become professional human cannonballs, with record-breaking results. Mobeen Azhar talks to David 'Cannonball Smith' and his children, Jennifer 'Cannon Lady' Smith and Dave 'The Bullet' Smith Jnr, about their unusual family dynasty.

Fatimatu Bachir Mustafa was born in a refugee camp in Algeria deep in the Sahara, home for the Sahrawi people displaced from Western Sahara when the war began there in 1975. As a teenager, a project called Summers in Peace saw her and other children placed with families in Spain and the UK to escape the deadly summer temperatures. Fati, as she is known, loved her holidays in Spain but her favourite place was Manchester in the north of England. She got on well with the host family there and loved the rainy climate, but she didn't like their food. They welcomed her with a vegetarian feast, something very different from the Sahrawi diet which traditionally contains a lot of meat. Years later, back in the camp and pregnant, Fati became anaemic and realising she was lacking nutrients decided she wanted to grow vegetables - in the Sahara. Despite the extreme conditions, with the help of her surrogate family in Manchester she set up an extraordinary vegetable-growing project in the desert, transforming the diet in her community. She tells Mobeen about that fateful meal and how learning to love vegetables sparked a food revolution.

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producers: Zoe Gelber and Rachel Oakes

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(Photos from left to right: The Smiths with Jay Leno; David Smith Snr in front of his cannon; Dave 'The Bullet' Smith Jnr getting fired out of a cannon. Photos courtesy of Dave Smith Jnr.)