He spent his childhood moving between different carers after his mother was killed by his father in 1966. 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. My experience was a horror story, but it wasnt so bad in other ways, says Barrie Sharpe. He has been made an Honorary Doctor by the universities of Manchester, Kent, Huddersfield and Brunel. One dual carriageway, with a single destination: Woodfields. 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. I was a deceitful one. I hadnt realised then but none of them would contact me ever again for the rest of my life. One thing many share is dark memories of the shame and stigma they suffered. Ben Ashcroft, the author of a memoir titled Fifty-One Moves, was nearly one of them. Mrs Greenwood does not think of the boy as a foster child. Lemn Sissay was born in the village of Billinge, near Wigan, in 1967 to an Ethiopian mother. Its taken a lot of years to reflect back to my foster parents what they did to me. 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 sat at the table and my mum looked at me intensely. But I will ask God for forgiveness and learn to love you. This was the perfect answer. That was strange for a while. I loved life. There are many strings to the bow of Lemn Sissay OBE. Later, while piecing together his origins, he discovered that his mother had pleaded for his return and been denied by social services. 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. 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. I was different. 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. As he moved into adulthood he was given his birth certificate and saw that his real name was Lemn Sissay and that his mother was called Yemarshet. Ive loved mussels ever since. Im out here, on my own, doing the best I can, with the very little that any family member is going to offer me. Went on to talk about another placement for Norman without any consideration of how the boy might feel. When you are told by your parents that you are something you know you are not, it is very scary. Something pinched her features. He had a brother and sister, Christopher and Sarah, and then Mrs Greenwood had another child, Helen. Ive had experiences with homelessness, she says, and its something that disproportionately affects people who are leaving foster care. 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. Poet Lemn Sissay, with the help of Londons Foundling Museum, has gathered 59 athletes, artists, CEOs and others who, like him, spent part of their childhoods in care. Cato was born on the Caribbean island of Grenada and adopted as a baby by white parents in Brighton, along with his brother. Sissay spent 18 years as a child of the state. The church. Wherever I lived, my care experience included libraries and reading, and without them I wouldnt be here, says Rosie Canning, who was put into care in London at six weeks. He was brought up by foster parents as Norman Greenwood and was put into the first of four children's homes in Greater Manchester in 1979. It maybe shapes certain aspects of your character and your attitude to life, says Tom Riordan of the experience of being in care. are! My foster father was a teacher and my foster mother was a nurse. There's only one person in the world called Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. Theyd come down to see us and say hi. They were just friends, says Cato, now an expert on Antiques Roadshow. Since then his poems have become landmarks, sculpted in granite and built from concrete, recorded on era-defining albums and declaimed in over twenty countries. Lemn Sissay was born on 21 May 1967 in Billinge Hospital, near Wigan, Lancashire Higher End, England, UK. He advocates for children in the local authority's care and is involved in organisations concerning their welfare. Jenny Bagchi spent time in foster care and unregulated settings as a teenager before experiencing an abrupt end to care at 16. 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. Thus, Sissay began his life as "Norman Mark Greenwood . I showed my love for him by punching him. 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. Director of strategy and integration for Central and North West London NHS Foundation Trust, Im hopeful that attitudes towards those in care are changing, says Meera Mistry, who was in foster care in London for most of her teens. I was nine. Johanan Walker enthusiastically nods. Healing can hurt too. The foster parents have spoken of adoption, but they are afraid that investigations may lead to his mother. Social workers report. Catherine and David had no children when they took me. The Fostering Network is the UKs leading fostering charity; it champions fostering and seeks to create vital change. Donna Ludford, aged six months, with her dad. He expected a certain amount of difficulty from the exposure but its not made anything weird at all, he says. I spent my life searching for my birth family. 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. We raced each other home from school every day and every day I got there first. Lemn Sissay as a child, with his foster family He tells me what happened when he met his mother a decade ago. He was British and Ethiopian. 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.. My grandad had a cottage in Lochinver we would visit in the summer holidays and at Easter. I know from reading the very brief information I have on my birth parents that my natural mother wanted me to have a better life than she could give me, he says. She looked at me as if I had wounded her. She calls on the phone and and I walk in the garden as we speak. Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and mill workers of Wigan. ISBN-10: 1786892367 . The social worker handed Lemn to foster parents and declared his name Norman. I was always falling uphill, he says. LEMN SISSAY MBE is a BAFTA nominated International prize winning writer. Mum and Dad said I was like Macavity. 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. This is the story of being stolen by the state and his 17 years in local authority care. 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. I was excited because the family meeting was just me and Mum and Dad. Opening the evening with the epicMorning Breaks, he immediately pitched the listeners into a tale of the narrator clinging onto a branch for years before choosing to finally let go, having, throughout all his time in suspension, grown wings which enabled him to take flight. Raise me with sunshineBathe me in lightWash all the shadowsThat fell from the night, 11 December 1974: There are no problems with Norman. My brother Christopher is a year younger than me and I really loved him when I was a kid. The abuse she endured, none of which came from her own family, was incomprehensible and frightening, she says. Im 12. She lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then spent a couple of years in a childrens home. Lemn told how in 1967 his mother, aged 21 and unaware that she was pregnant, left Ethiopia to study in England. Yet in 1980, at the age of 12, young Norman was abruptly expelled from his white . Sissay realised he'd been stolen. "I spend all day in bed today," he once wrote plaintively on his blog. 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. His Landmark poems are visible in London, Manchester, Huddersfield and Addis Ababa. They moved between several foster placements before entering a childrens home. He describes a happy childhood, a mischievous nature, and warmth between siblings. Id never thought of myself as a different person., Principal and artistic director of Bird College, Sidcup. 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. 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. When he was four, Kriss Akabusis parents returned to Nigeria, leaving him alone in the UK with his younger brother. Buy My Name Is Why By Lemn Sissay. He has authored collections of poetry and plays and his memoir My Name Is Why was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. Thered be many times in the future that I would play table tennis with myself by pushing the table against the wall. In prison I became an avid reader, he says an experience that paved the way for his career as a novelist. The University of Manchester Chancellor, poet and playwright, Lemn Sissay, has received his OBE for services to Literature and Charity from HRH Price Charles.Since taking up the Chancellorship in 2015, Lemn Sissay MBE has contributed to the University significantly on a local, national and international scale. Now, as he approaches his 55th birthday, he's added another: children's writer. My care experience was both traumatic and enlightening, says Johanan Walker, who went into care in east London after she had a baby at 12. They were religious, and theyd never had [to deal with] an adolescent before. 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. So, stealing biscuits from the tin, taking pieces of cake without saying please and thank you, staying out late at night, the occasional cigarette they saw this as the devil working inside of me. 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,. Mr Sissay, who grew up in the care system, shared his concerns after a report, published by the. If you just want to be? Baker was transracially fostered from 11 days old. I was the eldest. Lemn Sissay MBE (born 21 May 1967) is an English author and broadcaster. He learned that his real name was not Norman. 0 likes. I remember the smell of wet heather, bracken and fern. Secrets are the stonesThat sink the boatTake them out, look at themThrow them out and float. He was British and Ethiopian, and he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. 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. By isolating and highlighting the success of care-experienced people it can become voyeuristic and soothes decision-makers into thinking that meritocracy is real. Samaritans is a 24-hour service offering emotional support for anyone struggling to cope. Giving him up for adoption, he thinks, was a massively selfless thing to do. It was about having support and confidence, and knowing what is possible, she says, I didnt even know what an artist was.. He received his MBE in 2010. Because her care experience happened so early she was in and out of a foster home in east London until the age of five Siroun Button never really thought of herself as somebody whod been in care. 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. 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. 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. It was a clear instruction from Mum and Dad. Mum and Dad must have told everyone in my family to stay away from me. Poet Lemn Sissay, who said he was abused at Wood End as a child, returned there for a 1995 documentary . The memoir was warmly received, though Jenkins, who edits Observer Food Monthly, has mixed feelings about becoming a figurehead for care-experienced people. 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. We sweated until one of us, invariably Christopher, would burst into tears. Natalie Hirst, right, with a girl she met while visiting her grandmother at her caravan site. I took off my trousers and gave them to my brother. These moments stuck in my memory. 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. He's talked before about a later meeting, but this first reunion, on London's South. The Greenwoods were strict Baptists and their foster child's high spirits appeared to wear them down. SOS #Dare2Care Gwynedd Council is calling for more care workers in Gwynedd. Lemn Sissay is a poet, author and broadcaster who was the official poet of the London Olympics in 2012. 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. Programme manager, Greater Manchester Trauma Responsive Programme. 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. 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