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. During that time he also became a drug addict and notched up 33 criminal convictions, he says. Natalie Hirst, right, with a girl she met while visiting her grandmother at her caravan site. But nothing was coming from there. As depicted in Steve McQueens TV series Small Axe, he was sent to live in Brixton, where his involvement in the 1981 uprisings led to his incarceration aged 18. Just me. Buy My Name Is Why By Lemn Sissay. He loved his parents, he says, but at the time there were no black kids around. None of this is your fault. I waited in the kitchen by my mum. 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. It was actually seeing Lemn [Sissay] perform that helped me realise that you could talk about it. They told me they were my parents forever. Christopher, Sarah and I were on top of the world. She lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then spent a couple of years in a childrens home. I was the eldest. The summer variety show hes directing with his students at Bird College, in Sidcup, south-east London, includes a song from the pickpocketing musical Oliver!, poignantly titled Boy for Sale. In prison I became an avid reader, he says an experience that paved the way for his career as a novelist. ISBN-10: 1786892367 . This is Lemn's story: a story of neglect and determination, misfortune and hope, cruelty and triumph. Pete Turner was adopted at five months and grew up in Bury in a very liberal family that loved me, he says. 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. I still think love is the most important thing. We look at reclaiming the adoption narrative and reframing the worlds view on adoption, and also helping adult adoptees heal from their trauma.. ISBN: 9781786892362. Over the past few years I sensed I had done something wrong and yet didnt know what it was. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers. Im out here, on my own, doing the best I can, with the very little that any family member is going to offer me. I looked back, but they were turning to go indoors, mindful of the neighbours. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Donna Ludford, aged six months, with her dad. I was nine. 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. Other weird things started to happen. His parents, unaccustomed to dealing with a young man, said he had the devil inside him and had him put in a childrens home. Theyre part of a poem-a-day project by their author Paul Cookson, who was born in the north of England and adopted shortly afterwards by a family in Essex. The social worker handed Lemn to foster parents and declared his name Norman. 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. I lost everybody. 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. Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. 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. But dont be fooled, she says. My experience has taught me the importance of having kind, supportive adults in the lives of children in care to help them feel safe, cared for and treated like one of the family, she says. The abuse she endured, none of which came from her own family, was incomprehensible and frightening, she says. The lecture was the latest in a series of Arts and Science presentations which are taking place at the School in the evenings and are open to the general public. 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. I was a very challenging and complex young person. His memoir about that time, Fifty-One Moves, is now taught at universities and Ashcroft is a founding member of the campaign group Every Child Leaving Care Matters. Thats the number of times he was relocated between 11, when he and his brother were abandoned by their mother, and 17, when he decided he had to pull himself together. Mrs Greenwood does not think of the boy as a foster child. Lemn Sissay is the author of five poetry collections: Tender Fingers in a Clenched Fist (1988); Rebel Without Applause (1992); Morning Breaks in the Elevator (1999):The Emperor's Watchmaker (2000), and Listener (2008). 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. Yet in 1980, at the age of 12, young Norman was abruptly expelled from his white . Its like, should I be receiving all of this, should I even be doing it? he says. The documents armed Sissay with the necessary proof that "the government had stolen my childhood.". 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. His zodiac sign is Gemini. But its a bit of a B-movie of an existence. Night cant drive out nightOnly the light aboveFear cant drive out fearOnly love. He put me gently in the car. Which is interesting, because I always saw myself as white. The abuse was confusing, he says, but Im quite stubborn. He rebelled against the system and later ended up in detention centres and prisons, dealing with drug addiction. Lemn Sissay is a poet, author and broadcaster who was the official poet of the London Olympics in 2012. From 13, he lived at a Barnardos care home in Ripon, North Yorkshire. Mr and Mrs Greenwood realise there may be many problems ahead with Norman. The skies are grey. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders. When he was six, his adoptive mother died and he was sent to live with relatives for 15 months, until his father remarried and he moved back home. Went on to talk about another placement for Norman without any consideration of how the boy might feel. This led me to the answer I thought they wanted me to get to. Books were a way to escape from the madness around me, be that foster care, family, or residential homes. Yes, you did.. Mum and Dad must have told everyone in my family to stay away from me. But I will ask God for forgiveness and learn to love you. This was the perfect answer. Norman Mills, my new social worker, waited at the gate. We had the same rivalry most brothers have. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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,. Theyd come down to see us and say hi. Johanan Walker, aged 13, with her one-year-old daughter, during their time in care in Hackney. 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. My own success happened in spite of my time in care, not because of it. He was British and Ethiopian, and he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. 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. Samaritans is a 24-hour service offering emotional support for anyone struggling to cope. On the back another poem is handwritten, composed on the train into London this morning, fresh on the page. I was causing problems for everyone. Macavity was such a contrast to my blond, blue-eyed brother Christopher. Now my mindset is slightly different. She had a deeply unsettled childhood, moving between foster families and childrens homes from the age of six months, after her parents were badly injured in a motorcycle accident. 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. Instead of celebrating success despite the odds, we urgently need to improve the odds.. Hes now a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and founder of a campaign group Every Child Leaving Care Matters. Cato was born on the Caribbean island of Grenada and adopted as a baby by white parents in Brighton, along with his 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. Its about thriving in life and doing what makes you happy., Zarina Bhimji was taken into a childrens home at 14, then a foster family. My experience was a horror story, but it wasnt so bad in other ways, says Barrie Sharpe. It was a clear instruction from Mum and Dad. I was excited because the family meeting was just me and Mum and Dad. Available in used condition with free delivery in the UK. 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. I studied the question for a day and a night, I prayed to God, and I read the Bible to see if a passage would answer the question. Lemn was born in 1967; two months later, he was taken into care. Now, as he approaches his 55th birthday, he's added another: children's writer. Author and poet Lemn Sissay says there is "inherent prejudice against children in care". It was a taxing legal process that ended three years later, in 2015, with an out-of-court settlement. Many of us who stood at the Foundling Museum have had to battle our way through systemic failures and discrimination. 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. He is now Birds principal and artistic director. I loved life: Lemn Sissay with friends in the days when he believed his name was Norman. 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. Why - and the search for the answer to why - became the word that defined Lemn . 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. 0 likes. 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. Why would she make that comment now? Mr Sissay detailed his experiences in the British . Axa Hynes, right, with her foster sister Michelle Brown, also featured in the Foundling Museum photograph. 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. We raced each other home from school every day and every day I got there first. So it didnt just have to be: this is your problem. Ben Ashcroft, the author of a memoir titled Fifty-One Moves, was nearly one of them. The betrayal was the worst thing. Lemn means 'why' in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, where celebrated poet Lemn Sissay's mother was from. 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