A child of the state Lemn Sissay

having spent 18 years as a child of the

state in children’s homes and foster

care you could say that I’m an expert on

the subject and in being an expert I

want to let you know that being an

expert does in no way make you write in

light of the truth if you’re in care

legally the government is your parent

loco parentis Margaret Thatcher was my

mother

let’s not talk about breastfeeding Harry

Potter was a foster child pip from Great

Expectations

was adopted Superman was a foster child

Cinderella was a foster child Lisbeth

Salander The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

was fostered and institutionalized

Batman was orphaned Lyra Belacqua from

Philip Pullman’s Northern Lights was

fostered Jane Eyre adopted Roald Dahl’s

James from James and the Giant Peach

Matilda Moses Moses Moses the the boys

in Michael Morpurgo friends or foe alum

in Benjamin Zephaniah refugee boy Luke

Skywalker Luke Skywalker Oliver Twist

Cassie in the concubine of Shanghai by

honking Seeley in in in Alice Walker’s

color purple all of these great

fictional characters all of them who

were hurt by their condition all of them

who spawned thousands of other books and

other films all of them

were fostered adopted or often it seems

that writers know that the child outside

of family reflects on what family truly

is more than what it promotes itself to

be that is they also use extraordinary

skills to deal with extraordinary

situations on a daily basis how have we

not made the connection and why have we

not made the connection between how has

that happened between these incredible

characters of popular culture and

religions and the fostered adopted or

orphaned child in our midst

it’s not our pity that they need

it’s our respect I know famous musicians

I know actors and film stars and

millionaires and novelists and top

lawyers and television executives and

magazine editors and national

journalists and dustbin men and

hairdressers all who were looked after

children fostered adopted or orphaned

and many of them grow into their adult

lives in fear of speaking of their

background as if it may somehow weaken

their standing in the foreground as if

it was somehow kryptonite as if it were

a a time bomb strapped on the inside

children in care who’ve had a life in

care deserve the right to own and live

the memory of their own childhood it is

that simple my own mother and I should

say this here she came to this country

in in the late 60s and she she was young

she found herself pregnant as women did

in the late sixties they found

themselves pregnant and she sort of she

had no idea of the context in which

she’d landed

in the 1960s I should give you some

context in the 1960s if you were

pregnant and you were single you were

seen as a threat to the community you

were separated from your family by the

state you were separated from your

family and placed into a mother and baby

homes you were appointed a social worker

the adoptive parents were lined up it

was the primary purpose of the social

worker the aim to get the woman at her

most vulnerable time in her entire life

to sign the adoption papers so the

adoption papers were signed the mother

and babies homes were often run by nuns

the adoption papers were signed the the

the child was given to the adoptive

parents and the mother shipped back to

her community to say that she’d been on

a little break a little break a little

break the first secret of shame for a

woman for being a woman a little break

the adoption process took like a matter

of months so it was a closed shop you

know seal deal an industrious

utilitarian solution government the

farmer the the adopting parents the

consumer the mother the earth and the

child the crop it’s it’s kind of easy to

patronize the past to forego our

responsibilities in the present what

happened then is a direct reflection of

what is happening now everybody believed

themselves to be doing the right thing

by God and by the state for the big

society fast-tracking adoption so anyway

she comes here 1967 she’s she’s pregnant

and she comes from Ethiopia that was

celebrating its own Jubilee at the time

under the emperor haile selassie and she

lands months before the Enoch Powell

speech the rivers of blood speech she

lands months before the Beatles released

the White Album months before Martin

Luther King was killed it was a Summer

of Love if you were white if you were

black it was a summer of hate so she

goes from Oxford she sent to the north

of England to a mother and baby home and

appointed a social worker she it’s her

plan you know I have to say this in the

housing it’s her plan to have me

fostered for a short period of time

while she studies but the social worker

he had a different agenda

he found the foster parents and he said

to them treat this as an adoption he’s

yours forever his name is Norman no

No um so they they they they took me I

was a message they said I was a sign

from God they said I was Norman Marc

Greenwood now for the next 11 years all

I know is that this woman this birth

woman should have her eyes scratched out

for not signing the adoption papers she

was an evil woman too selfish to sign so

I spent those 11 years kneeling and

praying I tried praying I swear I tried

praying God can have a bank for

Christmas but I would always answer

myself yes of course she’d gone and then

I was supposed to determine whether that

was the voice of God or it was the voice

of the devil and it turns out I’ve got

the devil inside of me who knew

so anyway two years sort of passed and

they had a child of their own and then

another two years passed and they had

another child of their own and then

another time passed and they had another

child that they called an accident which

I thought was an unusual name and I was

on the cusp of sort of adolescence so I

was starting to take biscuits from the

tin without you know without asking I

was starting to stay out a little bit

late at cetera et cetera now in their

religiosity in their naivety my mom and

dad which I believe them to be forever

as they said they were my mom and dad

conceived that that I had the devil

inside of me and what I should say this

here because this is how they engineered

my leaving they sat me at a table my

foster mum and she said to me you don’t

love us do you at 11 years old they’ve

had three other children

I’m the fourth the third was an accident

and I said yeah of course I do because

you do foster mother asked me to go away

to think about love and what it is and

to read the scriptures and to come back

tomorrow and give my most honest and

truthful answer so this was an

opportunity if they were asking me

whether I love them on

then I mustn’t love them which led me to

the miracle of thought that I thought

they wanted to me to get to I will ask

God for forgiveness and his light will

shine through me to them how fantastic

this was an opportunity the theology was

perfect the timing unquestionable and

the cancerous honest as a sinner could

get a mustn’t love you I said to them

but I will ask God for forgiveness

because you don’t love us Norman clearly

you’ve chosen your path 24 24 hours

later my social worker this strange man

who used to visit me every couple of

months he’s waiting for me in the car as

I say goodbye to my parents I didn’t say

goodbye to anybody and my mother my

father my sisters my brother’s my aunt’s

my uncle’s my cousins my grandparents

nobody on the way to the children’s home

I started to ask myself what’s happened

to me it’s not that I’d had the rug

pulled from beneath me as much as the

entire floor had been taken away when I

got to do for the next four five years I

was held in four different children’s

homes on the third children’s home at 15

I started to rappel and what I did was I

got three tins of paint Airfix paint

that you used for models and and I was

it is a big children so I’m a big

Victorian children’s own when I was in a

little turret at the top of it and I

toured them red yellow and green the

cause of Africa down the tiles you

couldn’t see it from the street because

the home was surrounded by beech trees

for doing this I was incarcerated for a

year in an assessment centre which was

actually a remand Center it was a

virtual prison for young people um by

the way the years later my social worker

said that I should never have been put

in there I wasn’t charged for anything I

hadn’t done anything wrong but because I

had no family to inquire about me they

could do anything to me

I’m 17 years old and they had a padded

cell they would March me down corridors

in LA size order they I was put in a

dormitory with a confirmed Nazi

sympathizer all of the staff were

ex-police interesting and ex probation

officers the man who ran it was an

ex-army officer every time I had a visit

by a person who I did not know who would

feed me grapes once every three months I

was strip-searched that home was full of

young boys who were on remand for things

like murder and this was the preparation

that I was being given after 17 years as

a child of the state I have to tell this

story I have to tell it because there

was no one to put two and two together I

slowly became aware that I knew nobody

that knew me for longer than a year see

that’s what family does

it gives you reference points I’m not

defining a good family from a bad family

I’m just saying that you know when your

birthday is by virtue of the fact that

somebody tells you when your birthday is

a mother a father a sister a brother an

ounce an uncle or cousin a grandparent a

master someone and therefore it matters

to you understand I was 14 years old

tattooing myself into myself and I

wasn’t touched either physically touched

I’m reporting back I’m reporting back

simply to say that that when I left the

children’s home I had two things that I

wanted to do one was to find my family

and the other was to write poetry in

creativity I saw light in the

imagination I saw the endless

possibility of life the endless truth

the permanent creation of reality the

v.v the place where anger was an

expression in the search for love a

place where dysfunction is a true

reaction to untruth I’ve just got to say

to you all I found all of my family in

my adult life I’ve spent all of my adult

life finding them and I’ve now got a

fully dysfunctional family just like

everybody else but I’m reporting back to

you to say quite simply that you can

define how strong a democracy is by how

its government treats its child I don’t

mean children I mean the child of the

state thanks very much it’s been an

honor

you