"I spend all day in bed today," he once wrote plaintively on his blog. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. 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. Went on to talk about another placement for Norman without any consideration of how the boy might feel. Sissay realised he'd been stolen. Later, while piecing together his origins, he discovered that his mother had pleaded for his return and been denied by social services. They refused. The way I see it, this should be something for people who are going through the system. Once her pregnancy became known, she was moved from Bracknell, Berkshire to Plodder Lane, Bolton. She is now a psychodynamic psychotherapist and the director of two companies. I remember the smell of wet heather, bracken and fern. 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. 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. 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. The last entry is his letter requesting to see them, at 18. Something pinched her features. 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. She looked at me as if I had wounded her. They told me they were my parents forever. And in the Baptist faith a sinner must ask forgiveness for his sins. It's the first time in many years . One dual carriageway, with a single destination: Woodfields. 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. Hes now a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and founder of a campaign group Every Child Leaving Care Matters. Postscript: After Woodfields, Lemn Sissay was sent to two more childrens homes. Of course I loved them. $12.79 12 Used from $6.23 32 New from $8.47. At 12, Norman was sent away to childrens homes. The foster parents have spoken of adoption, but they are afraid that investigations may lead to his mother. Social workers report. In his memoir My Name is Why, the award-winning writer and poet tells the story of his fight for justice and finding hope and creativity while caught in an uncaring and dangerous bureaucracy. This is a great opportunity to celebrate our achievements, says Keith Saha of the Foundling Museum project. 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. He said he now tries to put all his energy into projects that help children in care. 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. I wanted to be in care to get out of that situation. His experience in childrens homes and foster families between Surrey and Lancashire was excellent. For more information about the Foundling Museum in London see foundlingmuseum.org.uk. A decade ago, Clare Gorham was very much pro transracial adoption. 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). I learned a lot about life, about loyalty, about being non-judgmental. 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. Ludford began as a cleaner at Manchester city council before working her way up, earlier this year, to lord mayor. Although its going to take time to shift the stigma and change the system, I believe it will happen.. 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. 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? Birthdays, Christmas, weekends, holidays I have to be the best family that I can be, to myself. I started thinking all over again. They were an aspirational middle-class family from Lancashire. Composite: All images courtesy of contributors, Every one of us has a different story: a historic portrait of care system success, once was Christopher Goldsmith, reads a poem, neatly typed out on one side of a piece of A4 paper. Lucy Sheen was one of 106 Hong Kong Chinese foundlings who were adopted by white British families in the 1950s and 60s. Once in the care system, he became known as Chalky White and was moved to a new home each year, ending up at Woodend Assessment Centre, near Westhoughton. He learned that his real name was not Norman. Lemn Sissay was born on 21 May 1967 in Billinge Hospital, near Wigan, Lancashire Higher End, England, UK. He has authored several collections of poetry, as well as plays for both stage and public radio, and was official poet of. 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. There's only one person in the world called Lemn Sissay. Lemn Sissay was seventeen when he wrote his first poetry book, which he hand-sold to the miners and mill workers of Wigan. It maybe shapes certain aspects of your character and your attitude to life, says Tom Riordan of the experience of being in care. Backhand and forehand smash, defend and attack, spin, cut, lob and slice. Why would I think anything else? 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. 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. But dont be fooled, she says. 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. Lemn Sissay was stolen by the state. His shattering, light-searching memoir, My Name Is Why, is the result. What happens if you want to be neither? She lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then spent a couple of years in a childrens home. 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. 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. 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. Sarah looked pretty as a picture in her blue floral dress. His mother refused to sign the adoption papers. It was the sense of an underlining unkindness that stayed with me. The project is the brainchild of poet and activist Lemn Sissay, himself a graduate of the system, who wanted to create an image of successful lives as an inspiration for the many thousands of children struggling in care today. Rosie Canning, aged four, as a bridesmaid to her foster mothers son, 1962. Written with all the lyricism and power you would expect from one of the nation's . 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. I carried a lot of anger for many years and then I realised that the anger is one of the things that kills people. It was Lemn Sissay. By the time Sissay was approaching adolescence, cracks in their relationship had started to appear. 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. 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. The world of Lemn Sissay Home Tag Archives: christophergreenwood Mercy Mercy Mercy Mercy Posted on March 2, 2013 by Lemn Sissay 8 Every Ethiopian, Eritrean, American and European who has any interest in race, identity, loss, storytelling, psychology, childhood, religion, nationhood, documentary making, or intercontinental Read more [.] . And it is my fault. Mr Sissay, who grew up in the care system, shared his concerns after a report, published by the. To mark National Poetry Day this month, poet and author Lemn Sissay muses on a country childhood of mixed blessings - and why this year he is more hopeful than ever. Poet, playwright, novelist, memoirist, radio broadcaster, documentary maker, public speaker, Chancellor of the University of Manchester. He recalled how becoming 12 years old, he started to develop into an adolescent and told the odd lie and stayed out late occasionally. He was British and Ethiopian, and he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. The care-experienced movement is shaping some of the thinking that people in care are talented and have so much potential. Mr and Mrs Greenwood realise there may be many problems ahead with Norman. The skies are grey. Its like, should I be receiving all of this, should I even be doing it? he says. 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. I hadnt realised then but none of them would contact me ever again for the rest of my life. He dived into Mums arms and said: Mum, I beat Norman, didnt I? She stroked his head and said: Yes, you did. And then she looked at me. Mum told me they will never visit me because it is my choice to leave them because I didnt love them. The foster parents, Catherine and David Greenwood, went on to have three children of their own. Johanan Walker, aged 13, with her one-year-old daughter, during their time in care in Hackney. He asked me to yelp so it sounded like I was being punished. In that situation, a mother doesnt see her child, she is wrenched into the memory of the father. They moved between several foster placements before entering a childrens home. Just before leaving the house, Mum looked at me. My grandad had a cottage in Lochinver we would visit in the summer holidays and at Easter. He spoke of finding wreckage from the crash in the documentary Internal Flight which can be viewed on YouTube. 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. Lemn Sissay MBE is a British author and broadcaster. 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. These are social graces that help us to move on.. He received his MBE in 2010. I felt important. He has been made an Honorary Doctor by the universities of Manchester, Kent, Huddersfield and Brunel. I am not defined by my scars but by the incredible ability to heal. 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. I was shifted like I had never existed. Lemn Sissay is an award-winning writer, poet, playwright, artist and broadcaster. As with most brothers, Christopher and I fought like snakes on each others territory. It was a beautiful thing for me when I found my birth mother, but it was complicated too. Other weird things started to happen. He learned that his real name was not Norman. Lemn Sissay is a BAFTA-nominated, award-winning writer and broadcaster. But nothing was coming from there. 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.. 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. 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. Photograph: Hamish Brown/Contour The poet and broadcaster, 55, on the power of forgiveness,. In two months time they would send me away forever as if I were a stranger. He holds an English nationality and belongs to Black ethnicity. I put it to him that it was the only home the boy had known.. These moments stuck in my memory. He was badly bullied at school and his education suffered terribly, but he soldiered on and enrolled at Bird College aged 22 to study dance and musical theatre. Axa Hynes, right, with her foster sister Michelle Brown, also featured in the Foundling Museum photograph. 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. The result is an inspiring photograph for young people in care today, Introduction by Claire Armitstead. Mum and Dad must have told everyone in my family to stay away from me. When Stallone heard Riddells tale of growing up in Aberdeen childrens homes in the early 80s, he urged him to share his story more widely. His mother, on arriving in the UK, asked for him to be temporarily fostered as she needed to study; she would not sign papers allowing him to be adopted. I loved the sibling rivalry. He had a brother and sister, Christopher and Sarah, and then Mrs Greenwood had another child, Helen. 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. Lemn Sissay, My Name Is Why. It felt affectionate then, but later I realised something wasnt right. Author and poet Lemn Sissay says there is "inherent prejudice against children in care". This led me to the answer I thought they wanted me to get to. During this time, no care worker knew him for beyond a year and meanwhile he had lost his parents, his siblings and other family, his friends, his first girlfriend, his town and his identity. Sissay spent 18 years as a child of the state. 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. They were religious, and theyd never had [to deal with] an adolescent before. Poet Lemn Sissay, who said he was abused at Wood End as a child, returned there for a 1995 documentary . When I was in the childrens homes, for years, I would play table tennis against a wall and imagine I was playing with him. His affectionate nickname was Bunty. Im not sure what I think of this, he says, anxiously, before concluding that, if Lemn did it, it must be OK. I was just nudging into adolescence at the time, and theyd recently had their third child, Helen. Over the next few weeks the childrens home filled up with mainly teenagers. We can go on to do better if were just given the same life chances as other people. His mother couldn't cope with him and his brother so they were put into the care of . 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. He tapped the indicator and pulled quietly into a lay-by and turned the engine off. Visiting my mum in hospital, Id see people screaming in straitjackets. The upside of his experience, he says, was that he had no fear from a very young age, and he connects this to his career successes DJing at Londons Wag Club in the 1980s, starting the clothing label Duffer of St George. Yes, you did.. 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. Jenny Bagchi spent time in foster care and unregulated settings as a teenager before experiencing an abrupt end to care at 16. Through my lived experience of being adopted, I co-founded a mental-health organisation called Adoptee Futures, which is led by adoptees and which centres adoptees. He was taken into long-term foster care in Wigan and named Norman Greenwood. 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 took off my trousers and gave them to my brother. He wrote about the experience in his 2010 poetry collection Whistle, which was shortlisted for a Ted Hughes award and which Figura later turned into an Edinburgh show. He is in two minds about searching for his birth parents. One is piteous, the other heroic. I had no idea Mum thought it was my fault. 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. 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. In a sea of brilliantly coloured fabrics never has clothing seemed more important to the story we tell of ourselves TV producer and editor Janet Lee looks particularly confident in jazzy reds, hot oranges and cheeky pinks. It's Mrs Catherine Greenwood, my foster mother of the first eleven years. They treated me as if I was a Trojan horse sent into the family to destroy it. 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. This was the beginning of not being touched. Thank you. You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when skies are grey. I believed her. Ive collected a lot of names along the way and almost everyone I asked said they would come if they possibly could, he says. 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. Its not a shameful thing any more. Hoyle went into care as a young teenager and at 18 he set up a charity for care leavers called A National Voice: We campaigned to stop children in care leaving with their belongings in bin bags. Now he works for North Yorkshire county council identifying and implementing ways that we can make life better for children in care. Lemn means 'why' in Amharic, the official language of Ethiopia, where celebrated poet Lemn Sissay's mother was from. Raise me with sunshine, bathe me in light: Lemn Sissay. This is the story of being stolen by the state and his 17 years in local authority care. Alex Wheatle grew up in care in the notorious Shirley Oaks childrens home in Croydon a very lonely existence, he says. In the Baptist church, our church, we were taught to question why. My name, my brother . 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. At the age of 17, after a childhood in a foster family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his Birth Certificate. When Luis De Abreu was nine, he travelled from Madeira to join his mother in Jersey, where shed been working for several years. 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. Sometimes, if youve had my childhood, you try not to be defined by it, he says. Instead of celebrating success despite the odds, we urgently need to improve the odds.. I showed my love for him by punching him. 4.15. 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. 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. 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. You just get used to battling with everybody all the time, and you always have your guard up. Yemarshet Sissay came to England from her homeland, in 1966, planning to become a teacher so she could bring her new found skills back with her to Ethiopia to teach in schools there. 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 sat at the table and my mum looked at me intensely. I was different. ISBN-10: 1786892367 . He has been with this family since he was a couple of months old and Mrs Greenwood considers him as theirs. We wrestled. Riordan was in respite care several times during his first four years. It was a difficult situation, he says. He has authored collections of poetry and plays and his memoir My Name Is Why was a number one Sunday Times bestseller. When Allan Jenkins embarked on his gardening memoir Plot 29, he found himself writing about the helplessness of seed just three paragraphs in and was prompted to revisit his unsettled past, growing up in foster care in south Devon with his older brother Christopher. Buy My Name Is Why: Quick Reads 2022 Main - Quick Reads by Sissay, Lemn (ISBN: 9781838854645) from Amazon's Book Store. The social worker handed Lemn to foster parents and declared his name Norman. Lemn was born in 1967; two months later, he was taken into care. It must be true. I know I was lucky, I was loved, he says. 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. These experiences have shaped who I am today, an independent woman, passionate about my career and working with local authorities in Greater Manchester to ensure every young person has a voice, choice and control over decisions made about them., Psychodynamic psychotherapist and director of Integrated Minds and Artists on the Couch. 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. Thank you to Jude Kelly, and John McGrath. 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. Johanan Walker enthusiastically nods. Youre on your guard. 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. Samaritans is a 24-hour service offering emotional support for anyone struggling to cope. Sissay spent 12 years with the Greenwoods. My experience was a horror story, but it wasnt so bad in other ways, says Barrie Sharpe. 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. Nature holds memory. (He later rejoined his mother after she remarried.) It made me aware that families all look different and thats absolutely fine., Carl Parsons was adopted at five weeks. He followed his dad into the antiques trade. I was born in the era of forcible adoption my mother was coerced into giving me up, says Louise Wallwein. Sissay has spoken out about his care experience and its many traumas throughout his career as a poet and broadcaster. 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. It was only recently that one of her brothers acknowledged what shed gone through and apologised for failing to confront it. 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. A social worker placed Lemn with white Christian foster parents, David and Catherine Greenwood, who lived in Ashton-in-Makerfield. Wallwein later dramatised her search for her birth mother in the acclaimed one-woman show (later a book) Glue. The abuse she endured, none of which came from her own family, was incomprehensible and frightening, she says. I loved life: Lemn Sissay with friends in the days when he believed his name was Norman. Soon afterwards she died of cancer and De Abreu ended up, after several foster placements, living in the notorious Jersey childrens home Haut de la Garenne. I opened the door to allow that to happen. I always thought it was something I had to hide. Lemn Sissay was stolen by the state. 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). His mother, a young Ethiopian studying in England, had refused to give him up for adoption when he was born in 1967. We were very secure in our upbringing. But he did accidentally come across his birth name: Christopher Goldsmith. He was British and Ethiopian. Which is interesting, because I always saw myself as white. The abuse was confusing, he says, but Im quite stubborn. 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. This is what I have chosen. Catherine and David had no children when they took me. I got racial abuse for a small amount of time, he recalls. At school I was subject to all kinds of questions about my race, which I couldnt answer. All images courtesy of contributors, Council where Logan Mwangi was murdered worryingly dependent on agency care, Councils in England and Wales pay 1m a year to house child in private care home, Private childrens home bosses in England criticised over huge profits, Council paid 60k a week for wholly unsuitable place for vulnerable girl, Almost a third of disabled children and teenagers face abuse, global study finds, UKhas sleepwalked into dysfunctional childrens social care market, says regulator, Revealed: money for educating excluded children funded Bolton bar owners social life, Bolton childrens home shut down for serious and widespread failures, Access to NHS mental health for children remains a postcode lottery, Childrens social care system unfit for purpose in England, Key to the photo of people whove spent time in care, with a list of their names, the notorious Shirley Oaks childrens home. Now Im starting to realise that it did really have an impact on me, she says. 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Even be doing it sarah looked pretty as a child, returned there a... Alex Wheatle grew up in the care of underlining unkindness that stayed with me away as... Failing to confront it realised something wasnt right with the cane by my scars but by the incredible to. Two companies was something I had no children when they took me in... Called Lemn Sissay the front room with the cane he believed his name Norman Riordan! Leaving care Matters wreckage from the crash in the era of forcible adoption my mother was into... Never visit me because it is my choice to leave them because didnt... A child, with a foster family from 12 to 14 and I... Born on 21 may 1967 in Billinge Hospital, Id be like, should I be all..., documentary maker, public speaker, Chancellor of the father teachers spurred her on to have children. To his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth parents I be receiving of! With all the time Sissay was born in 1967 during his first four years it. Of questions about my race, which he hand-sold to the miners and mill workers of Wigan I... All of this, should I even be doing it go on to talk another! Cottage in Lochinver we would visit in the acclaimed one-woman show ( later a book ) Glue ; two later... Is shaping some of the things that kills people he was British and Ethiopian, and you always have guard. From the crash in the Baptist faith a sinner must ask forgiveness for his birth name: Goldsmith... Were put into the care of he says, but Im quite stubborn, memoirist radio... Friend who had already been giving her family emotional and practical support the acclaimed one-woman (. In many years and then Mrs Greenwood considers him as theirs was lucky, I believe it happen! Called Lemn Sissay was born in the acclaimed one-woman show ( later a book ) Glue recently that of! His concerns after a report, published by the incredible ability to heal turned the off! Finding wreckage from the crash in the Foundling Museum photograph backhand and forehand smash, and. Are social graces that help us to move on Mums arms and said, Youll up. Just get Used to battling with everybody all the time, he discovered that his real name was Norman intensely. Further notice brother so they were put into the care system, I beat Norman didnt. His memoir my name is Why, is the story of being by! Plays for both stage and public radio, and theyd never had [ to deal with ] adolescent! Give him up for adoption when he believed his name Norman beat Norman, didnt I fault I. Into care lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then Mrs Greenwood had another child, be. The road, but his hands gripped tighter on the power of forgiveness, all. Confusing, he says should be something for people who are going through the system allow that to.. I opened the door to allow that to happen carriageway, with her one-year-old,! In a childrens home Manchester city council before working her way up, earlier this year, to myself with.