Mum had always said that love was never in question. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning writer and broadcaster. 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, broadcaster, chancellor of the University of Manchester. He holds an English nationality and belongs to Black ethnicity. In 1984, at 17, he was sent to Wood End Assessment Centre, a remand home in Wigan. He recalled how becoming 12 years old, he started to develop into an adolescent and told the odd lie and stayed out late occasionally. Its never really been something that had a lasting effect on me., CEO of Adoptee Futures and critical adoption studies researcher, I was fostered till the age of one and then placed with my adoptive family, says Annalisa Toccara. Lemn means 'why' in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, where celebrated poet Lemn Sissay's mother was from. Lemn Sissay, one of our best-loved poets, was fostered as a baby. This is a great opportunity to celebrate our achievements, says Keith Saha of the Foundling Museum project. Becoming a young parent motivated her to return to education as an adult. It was the end of December 1979 and I was excited when I entered the front room for the family meeting. James McMahon 'I was so proud to be the official poet of the 2012 Olympic Games': Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian, and he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Ive had experiences with homelessness, she says, and its something that disproportionately affects people who are leaving foster care. Sissay has spoken out about his care experience and its many traumas throughout his career as a poet and broadcaster. The abuse she endured, none of which came from her own family, was incomprehensible and frightening, she says. Growing up, the moment someone found out I was care-experienced, theyd make negative assumptions, says Lucy Reynolds, who had moved in and out of care eight times before being adopted aged seven. He expected a certain amount of difficulty from the exposure but its not made anything weird at all, he says. So it didnt just have to be: this is your problem. Raise me with sunshine, bathe me in light: Lemn Sissay. 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. Buy My Name Is Why By Lemn Sissay. These are social graces that help us to move on.. Sissay realised he'd been stolen. Lemn Sissay as a child, with his foster family He tells me what happened when he met his mother a decade ago. My brother Christopher was eight. 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. The foster parents, Catherine and David Greenwood, went on to have three children of their own. This is the story of being stolen by the state and his 17 years in local authority care. Lemn Sissay was born on 21 May 1967 in Billinge Hospital, near Wigan, Lancashire Higher End, England, UK. 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.. But success is not about being the lord mayor, she told a group of care leavers recently. I got racial abuse for a small amount of time, he recalls. I used to let Christopher win at things, because he would get really upset when he didnt win, so I would play the wall and then let the ball go, and say to the wall: 15 love, to you. There was always a decision as I got to the end of the game with the wall, about whether Id let him win or not. 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. This photograph alone proves that with the right support and opportunities, those stereotypes are false.. 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. His shattering, light-searching memoir, My Name Is Why, is the result. Poet Lemn Sissay, who said he was abused at Wood End as a child, returned there for a 1995 documentary . 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. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe . 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. 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. I was mostly well looked after, he says, and learned to be happy in my own company., Ive become somebody to whom family and community is incredibly important, says opera singer Jack Holton, who was born in Kent to a single mother with health issues and fostered at an early age. The heartache and anger of his youth alternate in his poetry with lighter, whimsical aphorisms and celebrations of place . Once her pregnancy became known, she was moved from Bracknell, Berkshire to Plodder Lane, Bolton. My brother Christopher is a year younger than me and I really loved him when I was a kid. We had the same rivalry most brothers have. 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. I always feel these two years [at the childrens home] made it possible for me to be who I am today.. Ben Ashcroft, the author of a memoir titled Fifty-One Moves, was nearly one of them. Thank you. I was a questioner. 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. Birthdays, Christmas, weekends, holidays I have to be the best family that I can be, to myself. Riordan was in respite care several times during his first four years. My experience was a horror story, but it wasnt so bad in other ways, says Barrie Sharpe. It was the sense of an underlining unkindness that stayed with me. Lemn Sissay. Other weird things started to happen. The Care Leavers Association is a national user-led charity aimed at improving the lives of care leavers of all ages. Poet Lemn Sissay and actress Lisa Faulkner became friends on Twitter, united by one common interest: children in the British care system. It was Lemn Sissay. show more Product details Format Hardback | 208 pages Dimensions 162 x 220 x 25mm | 422g Lemn Sissay was stolen by the state. He lost touch at nightTheir fingertips withdrewNobody touched him, light,Except you. All my personal belongings went in the locker by the bed. Ive loved mussels ever since. 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. They were an aspirational middle-class family from Lancashire. 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. 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. She left home at 16 after coming out as gay an experience depicted in her 2011 memoir, Why Be Happy When You Could Be Normal? 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. To help others like her, Button has co-founded calling4gr8ness.org, a programme supporting care-experienced young adults in the creative industries. Johanan Walker, aged 13, with her one-year-old daughter, during their time in care in Hackney. He is now Birds principal and artistic director. It's the first time in many years . By the time Sissay was approaching adolescence, cracks in their relationship had started to appear. Programme manager, Greater Manchester Trauma Responsive Programme. My parents were amazing, but their colour-blind approach wasnt representative of societys view of me., There are at least two kinds of narratives about being in care, says Sylvan Baker. Mr and Mrs Greenwood realise there may be many problems ahead with Norman. The skies are grey. 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. Lemn told how in 1967 his mother, aged 21 and unaware that she was pregnant, left Ethiopia to study in England. Backhand and forehand smash, defend and attack, spin, cut, lob and slice. His affectionate nickname was Bunty. . Night cant drive out nightOnly the light aboveFear cant drive out fearOnly love. Whilst it served as a telling analogy for his own life, he apologised to anyone fresh to poetry readings as this was a weighty introduction but, he said, I wanted to push you. Of course I loved them. They moved between several foster placements before entering a childrens home. "I spend all day in bed today," he once wrote plaintively on his blog. A school report calling the boy "a ray of sunshine" is probed for racist overtones, and happily exonerated. Macavity was such a contrast to my blond, blue-eyed brother Christopher. It was Lemn Sissay. He is in two minds about searching for his birth parents. As with most brothers, Christopher and I fought like snakes on each others territory. He asked me to yelp so it sounded like I was being punished. Today we stand proud as care leavers and remove societys stigma. Brown defied expectations by progressing to university and getting a Masters. I slowly realised I was being set up. I always thought it was something I had to hide. 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). This is Lemn's story, a story of neglect and determination . 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. They refused. Lemn Sissay was stolen by the state. 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. Poet Lemn Sissay says he felt obliged to accept his OBE because the award honours his younger self who overcame a "dehumanising" time in care. 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