9.02M subscribers Lemn Sissay is one of the UK's most revered writers. I just have to keep mentally strong and reverse those doubts., Participation and projects lead at Pure Insight and business owner, Natalie Hirst spent eight years living in foster care in Greater Manchester and had a mixed experience, but her resilience helped her to develop the strength and skills to overcome many challenges. 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. Now hes written a lyrical memoir describing his experiences, Lemn Sissay, poet, performer and chancellor at the University of Manchester, was born in Billings Hospital near St Margarets House for pregnant unmarried girls and women in Wigan, Greater Manchester, to an Ethiopian student on 21 May 1967. My friends. Lemn Sissay, one of our best-loved poets, was fostered as a baby. In the Baptist church, our church, we were taught to question why. 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. Author and poet Lemn Sissay says there is "inherent prejudice against children in care". When I was in the childrens homes, for years, I would play table tennis against a wall and imagine I was playing with him. 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. 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. It was only recently that one of her brothers acknowledged what shed gone through and apologised for failing to confront it. Of course I loved them. 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. Not even a Bible. 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. During that time he also became a drug addict and notched up 33 criminal convictions, he says. They told me they were my parents forever. This led me to the answer I thought they wanted me to get to. Im 12. One of the greatest signs of my own sense of independence when I left care was the day I could ask for help when I needed it. I loved the sibling rivalry. James McMahon 'I was so proud to be the official poet of the 2012 Olympic Games': Lemn Sissay. He put me gently in the car. Thank you. 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. Sometimes, if youve had my childhood, you try not to be defined by it, he says. Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and mill workers of Wigan. 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. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe . When Stallone heard Riddells tale of growing up in Aberdeen childrens homes in the early 80s, he urged him to share his story more widely. Wallwein later dramatised her search for her birth mother in the acclaimed one-woman show (later a book) Glue. Its difficult to build a relationship with a mother. He said with age had come wisdom and he realised that bitterness rots the vessel that carries it; forgiveness for him has given him great release. I wanted to be in care to get out of that situation. His experience in childrens homes and foster families between Surrey and Lancashire was excellent. "I found out about your past and then I heard you on Desert Island Discs," Lisa told Lemn . Id never thought of myself as a different person., Principal and artistic director of Bird College, Sidcup. Its listening to care-experienced young people Ive been working with that has empowered me to talk openly about it., Donna Ludford applied to become lord mayor of the City of Manchester to raise aspirations for young people in the care system. Johanan Walker, aged 13, with her one-year-old daughter, during their time in care in Hackney. I wanted to tackle the sometimes subconscious, but overall still damaging stereotypes often perpetuated in the media, such as care-experienced people not achieving or succeeding in life due to their background. 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. 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. Healing can hurt too. Overall, the experience was good, he says, but you dont feel like youve really lived your childhood. Even though his new catering business is thriving, Bramble often feels impostor syndrome. 3 January 1980: My mum wouldnt hug me as I left, so I hugged her. My sisters lived in London with my blood parents in a black world. She was taken into a mother and baby unit as a 12-year-old mum, and had to fight to keep her daughter. Spectacularly ordinary, is how poet Paul Cookson describes his very happy childhood in Lancashire alongside three other siblings, all of them adopted. 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. He really put it on the map and allowed it to be something that we could be proud of as an identity and talk about as a political thing. Riordan was in respite care several times during his first four years. Every one of us has a different story, says Sissay, beaming around the room in a shirt that is playing catch-up with the sun. 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. show more Product details Format Hardback | 208 pages Dimensions 162 x 220 x 25mm | 422g 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. Lemn Sissay as a child, with his foster family He tells me what happened when he met his mother a decade ago. He advocates for children in the local authority's care and is involved in organisations concerning their welfare. And it gave me comfort to see your views on forgiveness and forgetting, for whilst I can see the psychological argument in favour of forgiveness, I stand with the words of a Holocaust survivor, 'There is no such thing as closure; it is a word invented by people who . His is an extraordinary story of family, and identity, lost and . Sissay spent 12 years with the Greenwoods. Just me. Macavity was dark, quick and a thief. I put it to him that it was the only home the boy had known.. This is an edited extract from My Name Is Why: a Memoir by Lemn Sissay, published by Canongate on 29 August at 16.99. 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. I loved life. Soon afterwards she died of cancer and De Abreu ended up, after several foster placements, living in the notorious Jersey childrens home Haut de la Garenne. All my personal belongings went in the locker by the bed. In his memoir My Name is Why, the award-winning writer and poet tells the story of his fight for justice and finding hope and creativity while caught in an uncaring and dangerous bureaucracy. Even this Great Hall, he reminded the audience, had been imagined by an architect before it had been built. The result is an. I waited in the kitchen by my mum. This is what I have chosen. Photo-Greenbelt Over the weekend, black British author, poet and playwright Lemn Sissay did his nation and the black community proud by picking up the very prestigious 2019 Pen. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning writer and broadcaster. This is the story of being stolen by the state and his 17 years in local authority care. My brother Christopher is a year younger than me and I really loved him when I was a kid. They wanted me to ask God for forgiveness and through him I will learn to love them. Lemn Sissay. It was amazing to be seen, says Olumide Popoola about some of the social workers who helped her through care in Germany. See more information Lemn Sissay was born on 21 May 1967 in Billinge Hospital, near Wigan, Lancashire Higher End, England, UK. Now, as he approaches his 55th birthday, he's added another: children's writer. Yes, you did.. We need to prioritise the voices of people with lived experience of care, she says. When he was four, Kriss Akabusis parents returned to Nigeria, leaving him alone in the UK with his younger brother. He describes a happy childhood, a mischievous nature, and warmth between siblings. We can go on to do better if were just given the same life chances as other people. It must be true. Raise me with sunshineBathe me in lightWash all the shadowsThat fell from the night, 11 December 1974: There are no problems with Norman. Lemn Sissay, My Name Is Why. When you are told by your parents that you are something you know you are not, it is very scary. Its really horrible.. And then Lemn spoke elegantly and measuredly as he delivered a cathartic unburdening of his formative years. 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. Its not a shameful thing any more. Hoyle went into care as a young teenager and at 18 he set up a charity for care leavers called A National Voice: We campaigned to stop children in care leaving with their belongings in bin bags. Now he works for North Yorkshire county council identifying and implementing ways that we can make life better for children in care. Books were a way to escape from the madness around me, be that foster care, family, or residential homes. My grandad had a cottage in Lochinver we would visit in the summer holidays and at Easter. 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. Narrated by: Lemn Sissay, Richard Burnip, Zoe Mills Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins Release date: 08-29-19 I felt incredibly cared for and looked after., When Paolo Hewitt was researching his care memoir, The Looked After Kid, in his early 40s, he went back to Burbank childrens home in Woking, where he lived from 10 to 18, and realised that it was actually a great experience, especially compared with the dismal years in foster care that preceded it. The poemEmperors Butterfly Makerpaid tribute to the artists and entertainers who fill our leisure time he reminded the audience that once we have made our money we turn to music or poetry or art or literature, all of which have been imagined by someone. Just before leaving the house, Mum looked at me. Photograph: Hamish Brown/Contour The poet and broadcaster, 55, on the power of forgiveness,. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers. My own success happened in spite of my time in care, not because of it. Postscript: After Woodfields, Lemn Sissay was sent to two more childrens homes. I showed my love for him by punching him. It is not sunny, but Lemn Sissay is sheltering behind dark shades, hunched over as he inhales cigarettes to feed his near-40-year habit. 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. Adopted as a baby, Jeanette Winterson grew up in a strict Pentecostalist family in Lancashire. He thrives on praise and affection, in fact he cannot do without it. Social workers report, I hadnt realised I wasnt a happy child. He's talked before about a later meeting, but this first reunion, on London's South. Pete Turner was adopted at five months and grew up in Bury in a very liberal family that loved me, he says. She was pregnant with her son Lemn, who would go on in later life to become a playwright, broadcaster, writer and speaker. A social worker placed Lemn with white Christian foster parents, David and Catherine Greenwood, who lived in Ashton-in-Makerfield. Buy My Name Is Why By Lemn Sissay. They were my parents and I loved them unconditionally. If you just want to be? Baker was transracially fostered from 11 days old. He left school at 15 with one GCSE and two CSEs. The documents armed Sissay with the necessary proof that "the government had stolen my childhood.". Thank you to Jude Kelly, and John McGrath. He had a brother and sister, Christopher and Sarah, and then Mrs Greenwood had another child, Helen. I loved my family. I always feel these two years [at the childrens home] made it possible for me to be who I am today.. This is Lemn's story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. He felt that Normans successes were too many for [his brother] Christopher to cope with. He rebelled against the system and later ended up in detention centres and prisons, dealing with drug addiction. Because its not just my story, its the story of the people that have been kind enough to reconnect with me and the people that were selfless enough to bring me up. At the age of 17, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his Birth Certificate. Why - and the search for the answer to why - became the word that defined Lemn . It started at The Black Women's Cooperative - The Abasindi Coop - in Moss Side (1984 first paid gig) to todays event at Belfast Book Festival. Its one of the things thats made me the happiest recently, the number of people who will happily associate themselves with their care experience, says Jonny Hoyle. Antiques Roadshow star Lennox Cato has travelled up from Kent with his immaculately behaved labradoodle, Tilly; poet and playwright Louise Wallwein has come from Manchester with her support dog, Maisie, who is so overexcited that she gets through a whole packet of placatory doggy treats. Lemn Sissay: 'My foster parents were good people who did bad things' Interview by Donna Ferguson The poet talks about how his foster parents put him into care at the age of 12 and left him there,. Seek and ye shall find. This is what they wanted to seek. Lemn told how in 1967 his mother, aged 21 and unaware that she was pregnant, left Ethiopia to study in England. The betrayal was the worst thing. Alex Wheatle grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks childrens home in Croydon a very lonely existence, he says. His parents, unaccustomed to dealing with a young man, said he had the devil inside him and had him put in a childrens home. The memoir was warmly received, though Jenkins, who edits Observer Food Monthly, has mixed feelings about becoming a figurehead for care-experienced people. 4.15. And this is what I found. April 1974: Im seven. The Care Leavers Association is a national user-led charity aimed at improving the lives of care leavers of all ages. All I knew was that my birth mother, the woman who had my face and my blood, was from Africa and Africa was where poor people were. I was just nudging into adolescence at the time, and theyd recently had their third child, Helen. By the time Sissay was approaching adolescence, cracks in their relationship had started to appear. Why would the social worker, Jean Jones, say that my mum and dad are seen by Norman as his parents? You felt like you had to grow up too fast., The issues around growing up in care dont magically stop at 25, just because public policy stops, says Jim Goddard, who went into care in Liverpool aged three. Ben Ashcroft, the author of a memoir titled Fifty-One Moves, was nearly one of them. 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. Lightening the mood with the short, punchySarcasmhe recalled how he wrote it in his Batman boxer shorts outside the backdoor of his house, his girlfriend having thrown him out after a row! are! Its like, should I be receiving all of this, should I even be doing it? he says. One of the best things [foster care] has given me is the knowledge that it doesnt need to be a totally typical family setup to work, he says. Lucy Sheen was one of 106 Hong Kong Chinese foundlings who were adopted by white British families in the 1950s and 60s. The car filled with quiet loss. It was followed bySome Things I Like, which he said he had recounted to a girlfriend after she had asked him to tell her something about himself. Mr Sissay with his godmother Ethiopia Alfred (Jonathan Brady/PA) After being reunited with his birth mother aged 18,. The Greenwoods were strict Baptists and their foster child's high spirits appeared to wear them down. He then secured himself a flat on Poets Corner, a housing estate near Wigan. Read the scriptures and give us your most honest and truthful answer tomorrow.. I have no one to dispute or agree on the memory of me, good or bad. He has authored collections of poetry and plays and his memoir My Name Is Why was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. I was the eldest. 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