He is also the editor of The Fire People: A Collection of Contemporary Black British Poets (1998), and his work has appeared in many anthologies. He learned that his real name was not Norman. Poet Lemn Sissay, who said he was abused at Wood End as a child, returned there for a 1995 documentary . They were an aspirational middle-class family from Lancashire. Ben Ashcroft, the author of a memoir titled Fifty-One Moves, was nearly one of them. August 4, 2020. Now Im starting to realise that it did really have an impact on me, she says. 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. He left school at 15 with one GCSE and two CSEs. She showed him a letter that she had written in 1968, 4 months after he had been born, in which she pleaded, to no avail, that he be given back to her to live with his own people. He then secured himself a flat on Poets Corner, a housing estate near Wigan. Spectacularly ordinary, is how poet Paul Cookson describes his very happy childhood in Lancashire alongside three other siblings, all of them adopted. 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. Photograph: Hamish Brown/Contour The poet and broadcaster, 55, on the power of forgiveness,. Mr Sissay detailed his experiences in the British care system in his autobiography of his early life - My Name Is Why. We had the same rivalry most brothers have. His shattering, light-searching memoir, My Name Is Why, is the result. 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. They told me they were my parents forever. I spent my life searching for my birth family. It was a taxing legal process that ended three years later, in 2015, with an out-of-court settlement. Her care experience in West Yorkshire was reasonably positive, partly because I was just happy to have a home. He has been with this family since he was a couple of months old and Mrs Greenwood considers him as theirs. are! I was excited because the family meeting was just me and Mum and Dad. He holds an English nationality and belongs to Black ethnicity. Catherine and David had no children when they took me. It was Lemn Sissay. 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. Lemn Sissay is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, artist and broadcaster. The internationally acclaimed poet and playwright Lemn Sissay OBE shares the story of his life by recalling five memorable dishes. My experience was a horror story, but it wasnt so bad in other ways, says Barrie Sharpe. He was an introvert. Lemn means 'why' in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, where celebrated poet Lemn Sissay's mother was from. 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. He is now Birds principal and artistic director. 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. His mother was asked to sign adoption papers, but refused; she wanted him back when she could manage better. James McMahon 'I was so proud to be the official poet of the 2012 Olympic Games': Lemn Sissay. And thats all right, but thats the deal. I asked when my clothes and toys would be arriving. 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. My mother was a manic depressive, so I was in and out of care. 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. It was about having support and confidence, and knowing what is possible, she says, I didnt even know what an artist was.. They wanted their children to be educated and go to university. I put it to him that it was the only home the boy had known.. My brother Christopher was eight. 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. I loved him. There are times, friends say, when he disappears altogether, depression paralysing him for months; times when he folds himself into himself. 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. Thered be many times in the future that I would play table tennis with myself by pushing the table against the wall. Sarah looked pretty as a picture in her blue floral dress. 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. Sheen has made a documentary about her experience, a powerful study of cultural displacement and linguistic disenfranchisement called Abandoned Adopted Here. SOS #Dare2Care Gwynedd Council is calling for more care workers in Gwynedd. When Luis De Abreu was nine, he travelled from Madeira to join his mother in Jersey, where shed been working for several years. He loved his parents, he says, but at the time there were no black kids around. I was left in care and it felt like their intention was that Id work out it was my fault. In 1984, at 17, he was sent to Wood End Assessment Centre, a remand home in Wigan. There were times when Dad was charged with punishing me in the front room with the cane. My Name Is Why: Quick Reads 2022: Amazon.co.uk: Sissay, Lemn: 9781838854645: Books Skip to main content .co.uk Hello Select your address The Greenwoods were strict Baptists and their foster child's high spirits appeared to wear them down. Her adoption broke down when she was nine and she moved through various childrens homes around Manchester until leaving care at 17 because I came out as a lesbian and it was a Catholic childrens home. 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. 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. 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. Lemn Sissay OBE FRSL (born 21 May 1967) [1] is a British author and broadcaster. My foster father was a teacher and my foster mother was a nurse. I opened the door to allow that to happen. The church. Often, I would. Something pinched her features. His parents, unaccustomed to dealing with a young man, said he had the devil inside him and had him put in a childrens home. I was a deceitful one. 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. Samaritans is a 24-hour service offering emotional support for anyone struggling to cope. 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. My sisters lived in London with my blood parents in a black world. Fortunately were all busy people, so we have to rush off. And suddenly theyre all gone, a fleeting crowd of one-offs, whose generosity with their time and their stories has created an indelible image. The foster parents, Catherine and David Greenwood, went on to have three children of their own. I had no idea Mum thought it was my fault. Lemn Sissay was born on 21 May 1967 in Billinge Hospital, near Wigan, Lancashire Higher End, England, UK. I remember the smell of wet heather, bracken and fern. Mum smelled like mums smell; there must be a smell a child is attuned to from being a baby, a cross between baby powder and witch hazel. 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. 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. We sweated until one of us, invariably Christopher, would burst into tears. 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. He has been made an Honorary Doctor by the universities of Manchester, Kent, Essex, Huddersfield and Brunel, and in 2019 . 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. I stumbled across hazelnuts on a recent walk on Dentdale in Cumbria for a TV documentary. A social worker placed Lemn with white Christian foster parents, David and Catherine Greenwood, who lived in Ashton-in-Makerfield. 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. When I was in the childrens homes, for years, I would play table tennis against a wall and imagine I was playing with him. Lucy Sheen, whose Chinese name is Chau Lai-Tuen, aged one in the home of her adoptive parents. It was the sense of an underlining unkindness that stayed with me. Im getting to exorcise lots of demons., Now writing a memoir about her journey from care to Cambridge University, by day Kasmira Kincaid works as a fundraiser for Shelter. I showed my love for him by punching him. She is now a psychodynamic psychotherapist and the director of two companies. 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. Ive had experiences with homelessness, she says, and its something that disproportionately affects people who are leaving foster care. On the back another poem is handwritten, composed on the train into London this morning, fresh on the page. I just felt I had to hide it, says Sophie Willan, creator and star of Almas Not Normal, of her experience in care she spent much of her childhood in foster care in Bolton. 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. Being adopted is definitely something that puts a mark on you, says fashion and portrait photographer Philip Sinden. Poet, playwright, novelist, memoirist, radio broadcaster, documentary maker, public speaker, Chancellor of the University of Manchester. He recalled his days growing up in Leigh, near Atherton where he was the only black in the village and his time walking the streets of Daubhill selling cleaning products door to door. When you are told by your parents that you are something you know you are not, it is very scary. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey. I believed her. 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. The heartache and anger of his youth alternate in his poetry with lighter, whimsical aphorisms and celebrations of place . Alex Wheatle grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks childrens home in Croydon a very lonely existence, he says. I waited in the kitchen by my mum. Christopher was their first-born, but I was their first. 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. Lemn Sissay: 'My younger self did not deserve what institutions did to him' In a Letter to My Younger Self, the writer-broadcaster speaks candidly with The Big Issue about a childhood in care Adrian Lobb 6 Sep 2019 The memory of my younger self is something I struggle with. Its difficult to build a relationship with a mother. The documents armed Sissay with the necessary proof that "the government had stolen my childhood.". I came into care when I was 13, due to being homeless, says Sanna Mahmood. 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. Both have experienced it, from very different perspectives, and met in person for the first time on this week's episode of Yahoo podcast White Wine Question Time. His Landmark poems are visible in London, Manchester, Huddersfield and. She was pregnant with her son Lemn, who would go on in later life to become a playwright, broadcaster, writer and speaker. Im out here, on my own, doing the best I can, with the very little that any family member is going to offer me. 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.. 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. Why would the social worker, Jean Jones, say that my mum and dad are seen by Norman as his parents? 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. I always feel these two years [at the childrens home] made it possible for me to be who I am today.. Mr Sissay with his godmother Ethiopia Alfred (Jonathan Brady/PA) After being reunited with his birth mother aged 18,. Now my mindset is slightly different. 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? 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. Lemn Sissay's poem "Some Things I Like" celebrates what we might consider discardable like cold tea, ash trays, and even people. 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. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers. In prison I became an avid reader, he says an experience that paved the way for his career as a novelist. 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. 3 January 1980: My mum wouldnt hug me as I left, so I hugged her. "I wanted to hold them accountable for what they did," Sissay says. 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. Lemn Sissay, My Name Is Why. My home situation was dire. To help others like her, Button has co-founded calling4gr8ness.org, a programme supporting care-experienced young adults in the creative industries. 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. His own inspiration in poetry has come from ColeridgesRime of the Ancient Mariner. What kept us stable is that we knew we had two mums and dads.. I slowly realised I was being set up. Why - and the search for the answer to why - became the word that defined Lemn . He advocates for children in the local authority's care and is involved in organisations concerning their welfare. I loved my town. Although its going to take time to shift the stigma and change the system, I believe it will happen.. I brought all these questions home. Reconnecting with her birth family in Eritrea in her late 20s allowed me to realise the multiplicities of who I am, to make connections around inter-country adoption, and the idea that you can belong in multiple places and with multiple families. 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. I always thought it was something I had to hide. 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. Over the next few weeks the childrens home filled up with mainly teenagers. Mum and Dad must have told everyone in my family to stay away from me. 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. 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. My own success happened in spite of my time in care, not because of it. Thats all I knew. Wallwein later dramatised her search for her birth mother in the acclaimed one-woman show (later a book) Glue. He asked me to yelp so it sounded like I was being punished. 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. She lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then spent a couple of years in a childrens home. The theology was perfect, the timing unquestionable and the answer as honest as a sinner could get. None of us have ever looked into our birth parents, he says. He was taken into long-term foster care in Wigan and named Norman Greenwood. In terms of the care system, everybody has such massively different experiences, she says, and the fact that sometimes we are all put into one bracket is, I think, a little bit unfair., Artist, puppet-maker and puppeteer for film and TV, I decided quite early on that whatever happened to me, I wasnt going to be a victim of it, says Marcus Clarke, who lived in two national childrens homes in the early 60s, aged four to seven, while his mother was caring for his ailing father. $21.87 10 New from $16.75. 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. The memoir was warmly received, though Jenkins, who edits Observer Food Monthly, has mixed feelings about becoming a figurehead for care-experienced people. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning international writer and broadcaster. Or 45 years. Music producer/writer; founder of clothing labels Duffer of St George and Sharpeye; author; one of the two creators of the rare groove scene; photographer; activist. Insomuch as the foster child is a cipher to the dysfunction of a family and also a seer. 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. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. 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. Books were a way to escape from the madness around me, be that foster care, family, or residential homes. PAIN Parents against Injustice is a voluntary organisation, run and funded by volunteers who provide help and support to families caught in the care system. 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. As much as you read this book and are in shock (or not) at how this young black child was dragged through a problematic system and feel angry at the injustices he has faced, you can't . See more information Thus, Sissay began his life as "Norman Mark Greenwood . But success is not about being the lord mayor, she told a group of care leavers recently. My name, my brother . He thrives on praise and affection, in fact he cannot do without it. Social workers report, I hadnt realised I wasnt a happy child. An encounter with Sylvester Stallone in the Sinai desert, while working as an extra on Rambo III, prompted Mark Riddell to turn his turbulent care experience into a force for change. I was causing problems for everyone. Youre on your guard. Today, we are as close as she can allow herself to be. I had no pictures, no photographs. 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. They treated me as if I was a Trojan horse sent into the family to destroy it. They moved between several foster placements before entering a childrens home. He was the eldest of three adopted siblings, all from different families. If we spent long enough with each other, wed probably all start crying. I am mightily proud of being care-experienced as its made me who I am today. I am not defined by my scars but by the incredible ability to heal. I was shifted like I had never existed. I was challenged with a lot of preconceived ideas and biases by the adults I was around, about whether I could be a mum and make it through against all odds. Walker managed to hold on to her child and was later able to focus on education, which saved me, she says. Sissay has spoken out about his care experience and its many traumas throughout his career as a poet and broadcaster. Programme manager, Greater Manchester Trauma Responsive Programme. 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. In 2017 he launched the Lemn Sissay. 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. Of course I loved them. Lemn Sissay. The result is an inspiring photograph for young people in care today, Introduction by Claire Armitstead. 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. 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. 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. His mother was a student at the time of his birth who had come from Ethiopia to study in Bracknell City, England. 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. I was the eldest. Lemn means 'why' in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, where celebrated poet Lemn Sissay's mother was from. 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. Now he works as a theatre-maker working with young and emerging artists, many of whom are also care-experienced. Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and mill workers of Wigan. Its really horrible.. 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 is an extraordinary story of family, and identity, lost and . 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. Macavity was dark, quick and a thief. I had teachers who put me in a box once they knew my background and said, Youll end up doing no good. Reynolds, who contributed to her mother Margarets 2021 book about adoption, The Wild Track, now studies ancient history and social anthropology at St Andrews and is involved in activist groups. It's Mrs Catherine Greenwood, my foster mother of the first eleven years. Im not sure what I think of this, he says, anxiously, before concluding that, if Lemn did it, it must be OK. Thank you to Jude Kelly, and John McGrath. It was actually seeing Lemn [Sissay] perform that helped me realise that you could talk about it. 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