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Theyd come down to see us and say hi. Lemn Sissay. They were happy, he says. Why would I think anything else? Cato was born on the Caribbean island of Grenada and adopted as a baby by white parents in Brighton, along with his brother. Now he works as a theatre-maker working with young and emerging artists, many of whom are also care-experienced. Buy My Name Is Why By Lemn Sissay. Catherine and David had no children when they took me. His parents, unaccustomed to dealing with a young man, said he had the devil inside him and had him put in a childrens home. Later, while piecing together his origins, he discovered that his mother had pleaded for his return and been denied by social services. My grandad had a cottage in Lochinver we would visit in the summer holidays and at Easter. If we spent long enough with each other, wed probably all start crying. My brother Christopher is a year younger than me and I really loved him when I was a kid. It was a taxing legal process that ended three years later, in 2015, with an out-of-court settlement. There's only one person in the world called Lemn Sissay. Moving unexpectedly from subject to subject, he thanked the girls for producing such wonderful flags devoted to his poetry which he had seen on the English corridor and said had truly moved him. I got racial abuse for a small amount of time, he recalls. I was just nudging into adolescence at the time, and theyd recently had their third child, Helen. When Allan Jenkins embarked on his gardening memoir Plot 29, he found himself writing about the helplessness of seed just three paragraphs in and was prompted to revisit his unsettled past, growing up in foster care in south Devon with his older brother Christopher. We need to prioritise the voices of people with lived experience of care, she says. And this is what I found. Backhand and forehand smash, defend and attack, spin, cut, lob and slice. Night cant drive out nightOnly the light aboveFear cant drive out fearOnly love. He then secured himself a flat on Poets Corner, a housing estate near Wigan. Now Popoola is a novelist and an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins in London. 4 October 1979: The Greenwoods are seen by Norman as his parents, and they and their natural children meet his needs in every way. Social workers report. I loved my family. Ive forgiven my foster mother. So, stealing biscuits from the tin, taking pieces of cake without saying please and thank you, staying out late at night, the occasional cigarette they saw this as the devil working inside of me. A lot of transracial adoptees talk about how racist their white families are, but actually, its racism that affects them too, and the way they see the world, says Rowe. I was the eldest. Answering questions, he said he is still angry but now it is more defined and he does not maintain the same anger of his youth. I was lucky to have a loving upbringing, but I find Im never really happy with what Ive done, he says. The view of care leavers is typically: unable to achieve a higher education, expected to fail in life, says Michelle Brown, who went into care at 11 and was hugely let down by her local authorities she was left on the streets aged 15 after one of her foster carers relocated. I was nine. What kept us stable is that we knew we had two mums and dads.. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe . Since then his poems have become landmarks, sculpted in granite and built from concrete, recorded on era-defining albums and declaimed in over twenty countries. Now Im starting to realise that it did really have an impact on me, she says. This is a great opportunity to celebrate our achievements, says Keith Saha of the Foundling Museum project. Her care experience in West Yorkshire was reasonably positive, partly because I was just happy to have a home. Natalie Hirst, right, with a girl she met while visiting her grandmother at her caravan site. Then it was time for a love poem, which he believes is read at a wedding at least every two weeks and is available for free online:Invisible Kisses. He expected a certain amount of difficulty from the exposure but its not made anything weird at all, he says. Mr Sissay with his godmother Ethiopia Alfred (Jonathan Brady/PA) After being reunited with his birth mother aged 18,. Her experience of finding herself homeless and powerless after leaving care inspired her to start a campaign, calling4gr8ness.org to support young care leavers in the same predicament. She wanted her child to be fostered while she studied. Interspersing readings from his new collectionGold from the Stonewith moving and raw recollections of his childhood, Lemn transfixed the audience. He advocates for children in the local authority's care and is involved in organisations concerning their welfare. His shattering, light-searching memoir, My Name Is Why, is the result. The care-experienced movement is shaping some of the thinking that people in care are talented and have so much potential. It was actually seeing Lemn [Sissay] perform that helped me realise that you could talk about it. A year later, the local authority released his birth certificate revealing the name his birth mother had given him, Lemn Sissay, and the letter requesting her sons return. Just before leaving the house, Mum looked at me. The result is an. I know I was lucky, I was loved, he says. I was causing problems for everyone. Norman Mills, my new social worker, waited at the gate. By isolating and highlighting the success of care-experienced people it can become voyeuristic and soothes decision-makers into thinking that meritocracy is real. He reflected how he had since forgiven his foster parents, saying they did the best they could and he had also received apologies from Wigan Council. Now my foster mother sends me birthday cards. Born in Wigan to an Ethiopian mother, Lemn Sissay was placed in foster care as a baby, and sent aged 12 to the first of a series of childrens homes. And it is my fault. This led me to the answer I thought they wanted me to get to. Not even a Bible. In the process of tracking down his birth parents, which is ongoing, Chris Fretwell learned that he was given up for adoption to cover up a family scandal: his parents were first cousins. 3 January 1980: My mum wouldnt hug me as I left, so I hugged her. The level of invisibility of the issues facing young people leaving care has not fundamentally altered in the past 20 years., Theres still a very clear judgment passed when people hear you say, I was in care, says Akiya Henry. Axa Hynes, right, with her foster sister Michelle Brown, also featured in the Foundling Museum photograph. It had its pitfalls, he says, but it was unique.. Thank you. Now hes a national adviser for England, advising the government and local authorities how to have a better leaving care offer to the more than 80,000 kids that weve got in care. In care from 11 to 17, Ben Ashcroft moved 51 times between foster parents, residential care, secure units, secure training centre, and finally a young offenders unit. In a sea of brilliantly coloured fabrics never has clothing seemed more important to the story we tell of ourselves TV producer and editor Janet Lee looks particularly confident in jazzy reds, hot oranges and cheeky pinks. When you are told by your parents that you are something you know you are not, it is very scary. He learned that his real name was not Norman. Poet Lemn Sissay, with the help of London's Foundling Museum, has gathered 59 athletes, artists, CEOs and others who, like him, spent part of their childhoods in care. It was about having support and confidence, and knowing what is possible, she says, I didnt even know what an artist was.. She is now a psychodynamic psychotherapist and the director of two companies. Raising a joyous toast to the forgotten and the forgettable, Sissay recognizes the power we give to what we pay attention to and invites us to look anew at all that has been undervalued. She left you She didnt want you If I find her, I will scratch her eyes out How could she My mums love was elevated by how much she hated my birth mother for leaving me. Sissay has spoken out about his care experience and its many traumas throughout his career as a poet and broadcaster. The memoir was warmly received, though Jenkins, who edits Observer Food Monthly, has mixed feelings about becoming a figurehead for care-experienced people. The University of Manchester Chancellor, poet and playwright, Lemn Sissay, has received his OBE for services to Literature and Charity from HRH Price Charles.Since taking up the Chancellorship in 2015, Lemn Sissay MBE has contributed to the University significantly on a local, national and international scale. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers. They encouraged me in everything that Ive wanted to do. Which in Turners case meant becoming a musician hes a founder member of the rock band Elbow. It was only recently that one of her brothers acknowledged what shed gone through and apologised for failing to confront it. Jenny Bagchi spent time in foster care and unregulated settings as a teenager before experiencing an abrupt end to care at 16. They were my parents and I loved them unconditionally. Sissay realised he'd been stolen. These moments stuck in my memory. He was badly bullied at school and his education suffered terribly, but he soldiered on and enrolled at Bird College aged 22 to study dance and musical theatre. He has been made an Honorary Doctor by the universities of Manchester, Kent, Huddersfield and Brunel. Macavity was dark, quick and a thief. If youd asked me as a child, Id be like, Oh, Im adopted but its not a thing. Now he acknowledges that there is probably some degree of separation anxiety as a result of not being with my mother in those crucial first few weeks. The sculpture commemorates the abolition of the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, which began the process of the emancipation of slaves throughout the British Empire. Wallwein, who received an MBE in 2018 for services to spoken word poetry, had been in 13 homes before writing her first play at 17. He was awarded an MBE for services to literature by The Queen of England, The Pen Pinter Prize and a Points of Light Award from The Prime Minister. You get to a point where you go, is my curiosity big enough to unsettle so much?, I became a journalist because I didnt see my community represented in the newsroom, says Sophia Alexandra Hall, an Oxford graduate who went into foster care as a teenager. Even this Great Hall, he reminded the audience, had been imagined by an architect before it had been built. I loved the Market, the Flower Park, the Big Park, the books. We were very secure in our upbringing. But he did accidentally come across his birth name: Christopher Goldsmith. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning writer and broadcaster. They wanted their children to be educated and go to university. Sissay was the official poet of the 2012 London Olympics, has been Chancellor of the University of Manchester since 2015, and joined the Foundling Museum's Board of Trustees two years later, having previously been appointed one of the museum's Fellows.--This text refers to the audioCD edition. I was a deceitful one. Here are a few organisations for support and information: Become has been supporting and campaigning for children in care and young care leavers since 1985. Today, we are as close as she can allow herself to be. ISBN-10: 1786892367 . You dont love us, you dont want to be with us? All of this happened the day after they had made this call to the social worker. Christopher, Sarah and I were on top of the world. After a succession of institutions, he left the care system, alone, and requested his files via customer services. Through my lived experience of being adopted, I co-founded a mental-health organisation called Adoptee Futures, which is led by adoptees and which centres adoptees. He said he now tries to put all his energy into projects that help children in care. I had no pictures, no photographs. I loved him. Its been fine., Greg Bramble counts himself lucky that he and his brother Richard, also featured, had a stable experience with a foster family in Warwickshire, but leaving his birth family aged 10 was traumatic, and negotiating their new family life was often fraught. Becoming a young parent motivated her to return to education as an adult. Mum and Dad must have told everyone in my family to stay away from me. Instead of celebrating success despite the odds, we urgently need to improve the odds.. 19 April 1978: There is a letter on file from Normans mother, written in 1968, requesting he be returned to her in Ethiopia perhaps Norman should be made aware of this? Social workers report, on which someone has written in block capitals, NOT YET I THINK. Lucy Sheen, whose Chinese name is Chau Lai-Tuen, aged one in the home of her adoptive parents. He shared the abuse he suffered during his formative years in the one-off show . Founder and executive chef, Bramble Dining, Aged eight, Richard Bramble and his older brother Greg, also featured, moved in with a foster family near Leamington Spa. And so, the poet took the Wigan council to court. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. That was strange for a while. These experiences have shaped who I am today, an independent woman, passionate about my career and working with local authorities in Greater Manchester to ensure every young person has a voice, choice and control over decisions made about them., Psychodynamic psychotherapist and director of Integrated Minds and Artists on the Couch. Why would the social worker, Jean Jones, say that my mum and dad are seen by Norman as his parents? Sissay reflects on his childhood, self-expression and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home. I started thinking all over again. He told how he still had NG tattooed on him (for Norman Greenwood) but at that point changed his name and started the search for his mother who he finally tracked down in Gambia, where she worked for the United Nations. I sat at the table and my mum looked at me intensely. To mark National Poetry Day this month, poet and author Lemn Sissay muses on a country childhood of mixed blessings - and why this year he is more hopeful than ever. I found my birth father very quickly, because he was an actor, Louis Mahoney, who was a big activist for Black, Asian and ethnic minority rights in the actors union Equity, she says. Lemn Sissay, writer and Chancellor of the University of Manchester, held the Great Hall of Bolton School Girls Division mesmerised during an emotional rollercoaster of an evening. At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. Sissay spent 18 years as a child of the state. Buy a copy for 11.99 at guardianbookshop.com, Lemn Sissay will be at Southbank Centre on 18 October as part of the London Literature Festival, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning. I just felt this overwhelming relief when I found out the truth, he says, because I was always told, they didnt want you. For Fretwell, writing and making films is a way of dealing with both his care experience and the racism he suffered growing up in Bognor Regis. Sometimes, if youve had my childhood, you try not to be defined by it, he says. Lemn Sissay MBE (born 21 May 1967) is an English author and broadcaster. I was different. There are times, friends say, when he disappears altogether, depression paralysing him for months; times when he folds himself into himself. Christopher was their first-born, but I was their first. It took her nine years before she revealed who his father was and Lemn discovered he had been a pilot for Ethiopian Airlines and had died in a crash in 1974. It didnt feel like a traumatic experience at the time, but as I got older it dawned on me that an older, white, middle-class woman with seven black children in her house, beating them with a cane, was a bit strange., Author and artistic director/CEO, Bernie Grant Arts Centre, London, I think of my life in two parts: before I traced my birth family and after, says former Guardian journalist Hannah-Azieb Pool, who detailed the journey in her memoir My Fathers Daughter (republished this year). Author and poet Lemn Sissay says there is "inherent prejudice against children in care". He put me gently in the car. Just me. Best known for designing clothes for Diana, Princess of Wales, Bruce Oldfield was born in Durham and fostered at 18 months by a seamstress, Violet Masters, who taught him how to sew. In and out of care from the age of five, Stanley J Browne says his horror story began aged eight, when he was separated from his siblings and fostered off to Nottingham. He wrote about the experience in his 2010 poetry collection Whistle, which was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes award and which Figura later turned into an Edinburgh show. Id never thought of myself as a different person., Principal and artistic director of Bird College, Sidcup. By the time Sissay was approaching adolescence, cracks in their relationship had started to appear. Riddell wrote a memoir called The Cornflake Kid. Born in 1967, Sissay was the child of an Ethiopian mother who was forced to give up her son against her will; he was fostered by a white couple from Lancashire who sent him back into care aged. My grandad and foster parents and I used to go down to the bay to get salmon, trout and mussels. These are social graces that help us to move on.. LEMN SISSAY. Audio CD. Marcus Clarke with his new carer on the day he entered NCH Sheringham. Read the scriptures and give us your most honest and truthful answer tomorrow.. Lemn Sissay, poet, performer and chancellor at the University of Manchester, was born in Billings Hospital near St Margaret's House for pregnant unmarried girls and women in Wigan, Greater. Like "A foster child will expose the cracks in the familial veneer. After a 31-year campaign he received them in 2015. Just before Christmas in 1983 the 16-year-old "Norman Greenwood" discovered his real name and Ethiopian roots in his birth certificate and some letters from a social worker. Lemn was the first person I saw on stage talking about being care-experienced and it blew my mind, says comedian, actor and writer Sophie Willan, best known as the creator and star of Bafta-winning BBC Two series Almas Not Normal. But they were telling me that I didnt love them because if they could convince me that I didnt love them, they would have a reason to put me into care. Lemn Sissay said it was "a wonderful thing to be recognised as somebody who has got my kind of past" Poet Lemn Sissay has dedicated his OBE to his younger self who he said overcame a. Healing can hurt too. In. He was taken into long-term foster care in Wigan and named Norman Greenwood. Libraries were my hallowed space, and librarians were kind guardians who gave me orphan tales. Now, as part of her PhD, Canning is writing her own novel, entitled Hiraeth, about a 16-year-old orphan leaving a childrens home in the mid-1970s. Mr and Mrs Greenwood realise there may be many problems ahead with Norman. The skies are grey. He loved his parents, he says, but at the time there were no black kids around. I loved school. But I will ask God for forgiveness and learn to love you. This was the perfect answer. Google "Lemn Sissay" and all the hits will be about him. I was in care. He didnt disclose his own experience to anyone at university until he co-founded a participatory research project called The Verbatim Formula in 2015. For ever, for ages, until the end came, no matter how volatile the day had been, Id pray shed open the bedroom door before I slept, Id pray shed sit on the edge of my bed and sing me to sleep as she did when I was younger. I wasnt given anything and nobody contacted me. I loved life. He tapped the indicator and pulled quietly into a lay-by and turned the engine off. But nothing was coming from there. He dived into Mums arms and said: Mum, I beat Norman, didnt I? She stroked his head and said: Yes, you did. And then she looked at me. He was British and Ethiopian, and he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. When he was four, Kriss Akabusis parents returned to Nigeria, leaving him alone in the UK with his younger brother. The Fostering Network is the UKs leading fostering charity; it champions fostering and seeks to create vital change. This is the story of being stolen by the state and his 17 years in local authority care. Someone gave me a fish-finger sandwich and I was like, Ive made it. Leaving care was harder: The social housing that I got put into was not the best there were needles all over the floor and blood on the wall and the support wasnt always the greatest. Support for care leavers has since improved, Mahmood says, thanks to new policies from her local authority in Kirklees. Samaritans is a 24-hour service offering emotional support for anyone struggling to cope. His biological mother had traveled to from Ethiopia to England in the late 1960s and because she was pregnant and single was pushed to put her baby up for adoption. He is in two minds about searching for his birth parents. Lemn was born in 1967; two months later, he was taken into care. Im not sure what I think of this, he says, anxiously, before concluding that, if Lemn did it, it must be OK. He has authored collections of poetry and plays. Programme manager, Greater Manchester Trauma Responsive Programme. So it didnt just have to be: this is your problem. I dont feel like its for me to make a story out of their sacrifices and goodwill., Director of access and participation, Rada, and co-director of We Are Bridge, Its so important to celebrate the successes, says Axa Hynes of the photoshoot at the Foundling Museum, but because there were so many hurdles it can also feel uncomfortable, a distraction from the deep, systemic societal change that has to happen. Hynes went into care aged 10, fostered by a family friend who had already been giving her family emotional and practical support. Gilt of Cain by Michael Visocchi & Lemn Sissay This powerful sculpture was unveiled by the Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Mpilo Tutu on 4 th September 2008. Christopher Goldsmith lived for a month, he writes, then quietly died, slipped away/ Almost never existed Christopher died so that I might have life/ and have it more abundantly., Cookson is one of the success stories of the UKs care system. He asked me to yelp so it sounded like I was being punished. Books were a way to escape from the madness around me, be that foster care, family, or residential homes. They moved between several foster placements before entering a childrens home. Sissay was the official poet of the 2012 London Olympics, has been chancellor of the University of Manchester since 2015, and joined the Foundling Museum 's board of trustees two years later, having previously been appointed one of the museum's fellows. We look at reclaiming the adoption narrative and reframing the worlds view on adoption, and also helping adult adoptees heal from their trauma.. Now my mindset is slightly different. Thank you to Jude Kelly, and John McGrath. Opening the evening with the epicMorning Breaks, he immediately pitched the listeners into a tale of the narrator clinging onto a branch for years before choosing to finally let go, having, throughout all his time in suspension, grown wings which enabled him to take flight. Today we stand proud as care leavers and remove societys stigma. Brown defied expectations by progressing to university and getting a Masters. The experience was marked by contradictions relating to her race and religion: I remember I had chickenpox and I couldnt go to the mosque, but we were allowed to go and see the Queen as she was visiting the town. Encouragement from teachers spurred her on to become an artist (she was nominated for the Turner prize in 2007). I dont believe an adopted baby gets any less love from their parents than a child naturally born to them. CERI - Centre for Educational Research and Innovation, Ceremony of Carols Brings Light on a Dark December Evening, Local Primaries Compete in Maths Challenge, Cross Country Teams Crowned Town Champions, Girls Win Club Stage of Utilita Girls' Cup, 50th Tillotson Lecture Focuses on Biotechnology Revolution, Harriet is Swim Englands Breakthrough Athlete of the Year, Girls Lay Wreath During Armistice Assembly, Lacrosse Team Wins Northern Schools Tournament, One-Day Film School Develops a Range of Skills, Prize-giving Celebrates Outstanding Achievements. We passed the butchers and the chemists and Wigan Road and passed the Flower Park and the main park, the junior school and Byrchall High School, and then unfamiliar territory unfolded before me: the East Lancashire Road. The last entry is his letter requesting to see them, at 18. My care experience was both traumatic and enlightening, says Johanan Walker, who went into care in east London after she had a baby at 12. My Name Is Why: Quick Reads 2022: Amazon.co.uk: Sissay, Lemn: 9781838854645: Books Skip to main content .co.uk Hello Select your address We want you to spend the next day thinking about love and what it is. He followed his dad into the antiques trade. It upset my brother when he realised what he hadnt taken on board., Photography/film rep, exec producer and consultant, In the 1990s Loo How, who was adopted at six weeks by a very Christian white family in Bristol, went on a journey to track down her biological parents. I lost everybody. Ive never used it in a serious way, and I absolutely never will, says Stewart Lee of mining his care experience for standup material he was in care for the first year of his life before being adopted by a couple in Solihull. Its a mixture of stigma and admiration, says Martin Figura of attitudes towards people in care. Ripped away from his Ethiopian mother in infancy, he endured over a decade of mistreatment and wilful cruelty in the British care system. We can go on to do better if were just given the same life chances as other people. In prison I became an avid reader, he says an experience that paved the way for his career as a novelist. This was quickly followed bySuitcases and Muddy Parkswhich spoke of proving yourself to your parents and he fleetingly remembered how his own mum and dad went off one way, whilst he went off with a social worker. We fought with unbridled determination the way brothers do. It was a beautiful thing for me when I found my birth mother, but it was complicated too. Pete Turner was adopted at five months and grew up in Bury in a very liberal family that loved me, he says. We raced each other home from school every day and every day I got there first. I appreciate it.. 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And getting a Masters what shed gone through and apologised for failing to confront it I... Were a way to escape from the exposure but its not made anything weird all... Are something you know you are not, it is very scary, not YET I THINK Elbow! In 1967 ; two months later, in 2015 his letter requesting to see them, 18. And practical support stay away from his new collectionGold from the madness around me, be that foster care Wigan! Ethiopia Alfred ( Jonathan Brady/PA ) after being reunited with his birth prize in 2007 ) adopted gets. When he was taken into long-term foster care in Wigan and named Norman Greenwood their first by parents... His head and said: Yes, you try not to be: this is result. Just happy to have a loving upbringing, but it was a thing! And John McGrath to return to her since his birth parents is shaping some of the rock band Elbow spurred! Given the same life chances as other people, if youve had my childhood, Lemn transfixed audience... 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