This led me to the answer I thought they wanted me to get to. 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. The social worker handed Lemn to foster parents and declared his name Norman. He felt that Normans successes were too many for [his brother] Christopher to cope with. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers. 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. 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). 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. And it is my fault. Lemn told how in 1967 his mother, aged 21 and unaware that she was pregnant, left Ethiopia to study in England. Jenny Bagchi spent time in foster care and unregulated settings as a teenager before experiencing an abrupt end to care at 16. I learned a lot about life, about loyalty, about being non-judgmental. Lemn Sissay was born in the village of Billinge, near Wigan, in 1967 to an Ethiopian mother. $21.87 10 New from $16.75. In junior school, he proudly announced that he was adopted and half-Pakistani. It had its pitfalls, he says, but it was unique.. She is now a psychodynamic psychotherapist and the director of two companies. 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. In 1984, at 17, he was sent to Wood End Assessment Centre, a remand home in Wigan. 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. Its taken a lot of years to reflect back to my foster parents what they did to me. It was Lemn Sissay. The clamour of questions is almost deafening at Londons Foundling Museum one sunny July morning, when 59 people who, for many different reasons, spent all or part of their childhoods in care, gather for a historic photocall. During that time he also became a drug addict and notched up 33 criminal convictions, he says. Before joining digital arts platfrom WhyNow as creative director last year, Janet Lee worked for the BBC, where she was the editor of programmes including Imagine and The Culture Show and a producer on Desert Island Discs. Many of us who stood at the Foundling Museum have had to battle our way through systemic failures and discrimination. It's Mrs Catherine Greenwood, my foster mother of the first eleven years. Several people point out that they are the lucky ones anyone who has been in a care home will know many who fell by the wayside. Which is interesting, because I always saw myself as white. The abuse was confusing, he says, but Im quite stubborn. Google "Lemn Sissay" and all the hits will be about him. Paperback. Now, as he approaches his 55th birthday, he's added another: children's writer. Like "A foster child will expose the cracks in the familial veneer. are! We can go on to do better if were just given the same life chances as other people. One dual carriageway, with a single destination: Woodfields. Lemn Sissay is a poet, author and broadcaster who was the official poet of the London Olympics in 2012. He lost touch at nightTheir fingertips withdrewNobody touched him, light,Except you. The internationally acclaimed poet and playwright Lemn Sissay OBE shares the story of his life by recalling five memorable dishes. I would narrate the game against Christopher, my invisible brother and Id let him win. It taught me the middle-class way of life: how to lay a table and make a bed and eat with a knife and fork. 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. Mum and Dad said I was like Macavity. 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. He has authored collections of poetry and plays. They wanted me to ask God for forgiveness and through him I will learn to love them. 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. He learned that his real name was not Norman. Id never thought of myself as a different person., Principal and artistic director of Bird College, Sidcup. Now he works as a theatre-maker working with young and emerging artists, many of whom are also care-experienced. None of us have ever gone back to look for our birth families. But his writing tells a subtly different story: And so, nearly half a century later/ nearer to the end of the journey/ than the beginning,/ those questions arise/ and may remain unanswered/ but arise anyway.. 31 December 1979: Message left after Christmas saying that the Greenwoods wanted Norman removed without further notice. Social workers report, 31 December 1979: Spoke to foster parents on telephone. Mr Sissay, who grew up in the care system, shared his concerns after a report, published by the. Lemn Sissay, one of our best-loved poets, was fostered as a baby. My brother Christopher was eight. My care experience was lifesaving, says Antiques Roadshow expert Ronnie Archer-Morgan, who recently published a memoir called Would It Surprise You to Know?. 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. 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). 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. Mcintosh managed to make it to university and now runs a Caribbean restaurant, Sugarcane London, in Wandsworth, but he remains scarred by his experiences. "I wanted to hold them accountable for what they did," Sissay says. 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. All my personal belongings went in the locker by the bed. Lemn was born in 1967; two months later, he was taken into care. She was pregnant with her son Lemn, who would go on in later life to become a playwright, broadcaster, writer and speaker. I loved school. 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. Seek and ye shall find. This is what they wanted to seek. This was the beginning of not being touched. Born in London, Henry was privately fostered at six months by a wonderful couple in Weston-super-Mare who encouraged her dreams of becoming an actor shes currently starring in Mad House in the West End. 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 holds an English nationality and belongs to Black ethnicity. Buy My Name Is Why: Quick Reads 2022 Main - Quick Reads by Sissay, Lemn (ISBN: 9781838854645) from Amazon's Book Store. 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. Theres all sorts of shapes of family that can work and your community can be whatever you choose it to be. The abuse she endured, none of which came from her own family, was incomprehensible and frightening, she says. The exhibition Superheroes, Orphans & Origins: 125 Years in Comics runs there until 28 August, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Top to bottom, left to right: Clare Gorham, Keith Saha, Michelle Brown, Kriss Akabusi, Jim Goddard, Allan Jenkins (on the right), Stanley J Browne, Siroun Button, Martin Figura, Mark Riddell, Paolo Hewitt, Lucy Sheen, Lemn Sissay, Olumide Popoola, Paul Cookson, Lennox Cato (on the right), Sylvan Baker, Axa Hynes, Barrie Sharpe. By isolating and highlighting the success of care-experienced people it can become voyeuristic and soothes decision-makers into thinking that meritocracy is real. If they were asking me whether I loved them or not, and if they were the ones who taught me about love, then maybe I didnt love them, otherwise they wouldnt ask. Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and mill workers of Wigan. I am, as I have ever been, interested to hear anything Catherine has to say about the eleven year old boy who she and her husband placed into care. 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. This is Lemn's story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. He made me realise that it could be a strength not a hindrance. Shes now a patron of the Bolton charity Backup North West which helped her get her first flat when she was 17. Rosie Canning, aged four, as a bridesmaid to her foster mothers son, 1962. They were good people who did bad things. Becoming a young parent motivated her to return to education as an adult. Where I grew up, in a very white conservative area, there werent any other people who looked like me for the best part of 16 years, she says. I said to Norman Mills in the car: I know this is my fault and I will ask God for forgiveness. He kept his eyes on the road, but his hands gripped tighter on the wheel. Lemn Sissay reads from his new collection, Gold From the Stone, at Musicport festival in Whitby, 21-23 October, The poet talks about how his foster parents put him into care at the age of 12 and left him there, and finding his birth mother, Original reporting and incisive analysis, direct from the Guardian every morning, Lemn Sissay They treated me as if I was a Trojan horse sent into the family to destroy it., Lemn Sissay: My foster parents were good people who did bad things. 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 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. 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. Why - and the search for the answer to why - became the word that defined Lemn . If you just want to be? Baker was transracially fostered from 11 days old. His autobiography, Little Big Man (out 14 October), describes how he turned his life around to become an actor and musician. Writer and national campaigner for young people in care, Chris Wild has written two books about his experiences in care, Damaged and The State of It, and has spent the past decade campaigning to improve the care system. Sissay realised he'd been stolen. He learned that his real name was not Norman. I lost everybody. Thats all I knew. 0 likes. 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. His own inspiration in poetry has come from ColeridgesRime of the Ancient Mariner. My name, my brother . Tomorrow came and I said it with pride because I thought I had found the answer they wanted me to find: I mustnt love you, I said. She is also a trustee of the charity Pure Insight, which supports young people to have a better care-leaving experience than she did herself. She said: Take them off and give them to him. I didnt understand. 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. His shattering, light-searching memoir, My Name Is Why, is the result. See more information He's talked before about a later meeting, but this first reunion, on London's South. So it didnt just have to be: this is your problem. On the back another poem is handwritten, composed on the train into London this morning, fresh on the page. Buy My Name Is Why By Lemn Sissay. Lemn Sissay MBE is a British author and broadcaster. And this is what I found. Lemn means 'why' in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, where celebrated poet Lemn Sissay's mother was from. 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. Adopted as a baby, Jeanette Winterson grew up in a strict Pentecostalist family in Lancashire. Charles Dickenss orphan Oliver Twist is one of scores of names plastered over the walls of the room where the volunteers gather for coffee and biscuits before the shoot, along with James Bond, Jane Eyre, Han Solo and Huckleberry Finn. Narrated by: Lemn Sissay, Richard Burnip, Zoe Mills Length: 5 hrs and 20 mins Release date: 08-29-19 I loved him. Just me. Why would she make that comment now? He was British and Ethiopian. Lemn Sissay on ITV News (Credit: ITV) He gained significant international recognition in 2012 when he was appointed the official poet at the 2012 London Olympics. It's the first time in many years . Social services placed the baby Lemn into long-term foster care, advising the foster family to treat this as adoption. They were just friends, says Cato, now an expert on Antiques Roadshow. To help others like her, Button has co-founded calling4gr8ness.org, a programme supporting care-experienced young adults in the creative industries. 4.15. I loved my family. Interspersing readings from his new collection Gold from the Stone with moving and raw recollections of his childhood, Lemn transfixed the audience. And thats all right, but thats the deal. A lot of care-experienced people will also measure success by how were feeling internally, how we manage our mental health and wellbeing, and not always what were achieving externally. Moved into a childrens home aged six, Saha then went to live with adoptive parents in Merseyside the following year a complex but positive experience for which he feels lots of gratitude. There were times when Dad was charged with punishing me in the front room with the cane. It was a difficult situation, he says. I carried a lot of anger for many years and then I realised that the anger is one of the things that kills people. When my foster parents put me into care, at the age of 12, they said: Were never going to write to you, were never going to come. I could never have imagined that the people who said they were my parents for ever could do such a thing. 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. Today, we are as close as she can allow herself to be. 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. I took off my trousers and gave them to my brother. Lemn thanked the audience, saying: You have been a blessing and shared my story. Come what may, I may be knocked down, but I wont be down for long., Artist and founder member of the darkroom e5process, Tina Rowe first encountered racism when, aged six, she moved with her white adoptive family from a small Oxfordshire village to Malvern in Worcestershire. Where they are, we have been; where we are, they can go, says Akabusi who, like several others in the room, found his way through by joining the army. 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.. It was the sense of an underlining unkindness that stayed with me. Hes now a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and founder of a campaign group Every Child Leaving Care Matters. We want you to spend the next day thinking about love and what it is. The motivation, he says, comes from being 11 years old, losing my dad, going into a childrens home [Skircoat Lodge in Halifax], being really badly physically abused, ending up homeless, but then going back into the care sector and seeing that nothing had changed.. I loved life: Lemn Sissay with friends in the days when he believed his name was Norman. I know so many care-experienced people whove had that further experience of being homeless, being a rough sleeper, living in hostels, sofa-surfing, all that kind of stuff.. 248 ratings29 reviews. The installation, Superman Is a Foundling, is another of Sissays initiatives, drawing attention to the ubiquity of the orphan in popular culture, and it momentarily shocks the poet and performer Luke Wright to find his own history reflected in a literary trope. 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. My experience was a horror story, but it wasnt so bad in other ways, says Barrie Sharpe. They include Olympic medallist Kriss Akabusi; novelist Jeanette Winterson; the comedian and Observer columnist Stewart Lee, and the Turner prize-nominated photographer and film-maker Zarina Bhimji. He thrives on praise and affection, in fact he cannot do without it. Social workers report, I hadnt realised I wasnt a happy child. When he was four, Kriss Akabusis parents returned to Nigeria, leaving him alone in the UK with his younger brother. In that situation, a mother doesnt see her child, she is wrenched into the memory of the father. I slowly realised I was being set up. Sometimes, if youve had my childhood, you try not to be defined by it, he says. 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. They were religious, and theyd never had [to deal with] an adolescent before. 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. My body will skip around the table like a sprite on the solid stone floor. Alex Wheatle grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks childrens home in Croydon a very lonely existence, he says. This is what I have chosen. Poet Lemn Sissay and actress Lisa Faulkner became friends on Twitter, united by one common interest: children in the British care system. 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