Non Fiction We Don't Know Ourselves. A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 Fintan O'Toole 2021 Fintan O’Toole’s We Don’t Know Ourselves. A Personal History of Ireland Since 1958 (2021) includes references to: a. The industrial schools system (established in 1868 to care for “neglected, orphaned and abandoned children”) and the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in Ireland (established 2000). The Commission resulted in what’s known as Ryan Report (2009) and which concluded that many children had been subject to physical, sexual and emotional violence. Perpetrators were protected to preserve the reputation of the institutions. b. Magdalen Laundries: institutions in which pregnant girls and women were incarcerated, often for the rest of their lives. Many of the children born in the laundries were transferred to the industrial schools. c. Mother-and-baby homes, from which many children were sold to American families in a lucrative adoption business endorsed by the state. O’Toole also tells the story of the Dunne family, one of whom in 1961 tried to expose the brutality going in the industrial schools but who couldn’t get his book published. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir An Accident of Birth Alex Blum 2026 An Accident of Birth: A story of adoption and identity (20260) by American Alex Blum (b. 1955) tells the story of Alex suddenly finding out at age 60 that he has 3 biological brothers. Alex was adopted as a baby, which he always knew, but there was a secrecy around his origins. Alex Brand spent his working life helping others tell stories, but in An Accident of Birth he is the focus. From the back cover: “ More than a memoir of adoption and reunion, An Accident of Birth explores the universal emotional landscape shared by adoptees everywhere. With candid, affecting prose, Blum examines the pressures of “adoptee gratitude,” the quiet ache of alienation, and the lifelong search for identity, connection, and home.” External Website

Films/Videos The Chaperone (2018) 2018 The Chaperone is based on the novel of the same name about the woman who chaperoned ant Louise Brooks to New York City in 1922 and the summer that would change them both. Only a few years before becoming a famous silent-film star and an icon of her generation, a fifteen-year-old Louise Brooks leaves Wichita, Kansas, to study with the prestigious Denishawn School of Dancing in New York. Much to her annoyance, she is accompanied by a thirty-six-year-old chaperone, who is neither mother nor friend. Cora Carlisle, a complicated but traditional woman was once an orphan who was part of the Orphan Train, which placed children with midwestern families (who also happened to be strangers!). Cora was lucky, her foster family treated her well but some of the kids became the victims of terrible cruelty, and more hunger, and more neglect—it all depended on who adopted them off of the train. Young Louise, already stunningly beautiful and sporting her famous black bob with blunt bangs, is known for her arrogance and her lack of respect for convention. Ultimately, the five weeks they spend together will transform their lives forever. External Website

Actors Margaret Rutherford English actor Margaret Taylor Rutherford (1892-1972) was raised in kinship care from the age of 3. Margaret Taylor Rutherford was the child of William Rutherford Benn and Florence Rutherford. In 1883, William Rutherford Benn murdered his father and was subsequently held at Broadmoor Criminal Lunatic Asylum until 1890. After he was released in July 1890 he changed his surname to Rutherford. After Margaret was born in 1892, William Rutherford – a journalist - took his family to live in Madras, India. 3-year-old Margaret was sent back to England to live with her aunt, Bessie Nicolson, after her pregnant mother killed herself. (Margaret’s father also returned to England and was detained again in Broadmoor from 1904). Margaret Rutherford because her working life as a teacher before moving into acting during her 30’s. She became well known after her performances on stage as Miss Prism in The Importance of Being Earnest in 1939 and in 1941 as Madam Arcati in Blithe Spirit. Rutherford made her film debut in 1935 and had a successful film career playing in a range of comedies. In the early 1960s she played Agathie Christie’s Miss Jane Marple in 4 films, by which time she was in her 70s. Dame Margaret Rutherford, publicity photograph, c.1960. Photographer unknown. Public domain via Wikimedia Commons External Website

Children's Fiction Home Girl Alex Wheatle 2019 Home Girl is the story of Naomi, a teenage girl growing up fast in the foster care system. It is a wholly modern story which sheds a much-needed light on what can be an unsettling life--and the consequences that follow when children are treated like pawns on a family chessboard. Home Girl is fast-paced and funny, tender, tragic, and full of courage--just like Naomi. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience North Woods Daniel Mason 2023 The North Woods (2023) is a historical fiction novel by American writer Daniel Mason. North Woods tells the story of the inhabitants of a single house in the woods of New England across the centuries. Told in fragments, the novel begins when a couple absconding from a Puritan colony and concludes when a young researcher crashes her car near the site. Two of the inhabitants are the twin daughters of a soldier, Charles Osgood, who discovers the house and decides to plant apples on the land around it. The daughters, Alice & Mary, are in kinship care with their aunt for several years before Charles takes them to live with him. Aged 4 when they begin living in the house, the sisters spend the rest of their lives together there. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Martha Matilda Harper and the American Dream Jane Plitt 2000 Martha Matilda Harper was born the 4th child of Beady Gifford Harper and Robert Harper, a tailor, in a village on the outskirts of Oakville, Ontario. At the age of 7, when her father was facing a significant financial crisis, Martha was sent away to live with relatives and become a servant. At the age of 12, she moved in to become a servant for strangers. In 1882, Martha relocated to Rochester in New York. One of her tasks for her new employer, Luella Roberts, was to care for Luella's hair and it wasn't long before friends of Luella's began requesting Martha to care for their's too. At a time when servants cared for their mistresses’ hair, or hairdressers came to the house, Martha set up in business in a shop, investing her life savings of $360 to open the Harper Hairdressing Parlor. Eventually women asked her to set up business in other cities and Harper decided to duplicate her shop throughout the country. She hired working classing women, primarily former domestic servants, to operate franchises. Harper chose locations for shops, provided products, training and advertising, and often the initial funding for women to set up shops (which they paid back) and then as women—or agents as Harper called them—ran their own businesses, Harper was able to significantly expand hers. According to Jane Plitt, Martha Matilda Harper became the “mother of American retail franchising” (p. 62) although her model did not become a dominant one until the second half of the 20th century. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Charles Perkins: A Biography Peter Read 1990 Charlie Perkins (1936 – 2000) was an Australian Aboriginal activist, soccer player and administrator. Charlie Perkins was born in Alice Springs, in the Northern Territory; his mother was an Arrente woman and his father a Kalkadoon/Irish man. At the age of 10, Charlie was separated from his family and taken to live in Adelaide, South Australia at St Francis House with Gordon Briscoe and other Aboriginal boys. Not keen on school, Charlie excelled at soccer and he played professionally for the English team, Everton, in 1957. He was the first Indigenous Australian man to graduate tertiary education, and is known for his instigation and organisation of the 1965 Freedom Ride and his key role in advocating for a "yes" vote in the Australian referendum, 1967 (Aboriginals). He had a long career as a public servant. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience They Do it with Mirrors (novel) Agatha Christie 1985 Miss Marple senses danger when she visits a friend living in a Victorian mansion which doubles as a rehabilitiation centre for 'delinquents'. Her fears are confirmed when a youth fires a revolver at the administrator, Lewis Serrocold. Neither is injured. But a mysterious visitor, Mr Gilbrandsen, is less fortunate – shot dead simultaneously in another part of the building. Also features an illegitimate child. The novel's first proper film adaptation was the 1985 television film Murder with Mirrors with Sir John Mills as Lewis Serrocold, Bette Davis as Carrie Louise, Tim Roth as Edgar Lawson and Helen Hayes as Miss Marple. A second adaptation was aired on 29 December 1991 in the BBC series Miss Marple starring Joan Hickson as Miss Marple, Jean Simmons as Carrie-Louise Serrocold, Joss Ackland as Lewis Serrocold and Faith Brook as Ruth van Rydock. The film was basically faithful to the novel, with the exception that Alexis survives the attack on his life. Also, Ruth van Rydock is present at the house when the first murder takes place and Lawson attempts to swim across the lake, and does not use a rotted boat. A third adaptation was aired on 1 January 2010 for the fourth season of the ITV series Agatha Christie's Marple, starring Julia McKenzie as Miss Marple, Penelope Wilton as Carrie Louise, Brian Cox as Lewis Serrocold, and Joan Collins as Ruth Van Rydock. This adaptation had several changes and additions. External Website

Films/Videos Limbo 2023 Limbo (2023) is an Australian film starring Simon Baker as Detective Travis Hurley. Hurley is despatched to an outback town to investigate the disappearance and suspected homicide of an Aboriginal girl, Charlotte Hayes, 20 years previously. Charlotte’s sister, Emma (Natasha Wanganeen) and her brother, Charlie (Rob Collins) don’t expect much from the inquiry. Nothing comes from Hurley’s questioning except the sad knowledge that the police have never treated the Aboriginal people in town very well. By the time he’s summonsed back to town, however, Charlie seems more willing to care for his children, who have been living with Emma. External Website

Writers Gertrude Stein American writer, Gertrude Stein (1874-1946) was an international celebrity in her day. She was an important contributor to American literature, influencing other writers such as Ernest Hemingway. Gertrude Stein was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, the youngest of 5 children. When Gertrude was young, the family travelled to Europe – both parents were of German Jewish heritage – with Gertrude spending much time in Austria and France before returning to America in 1979. Gertrude Stein’s mother died in 1888 and her father in 1892. Gertrude, plus a brother & sister, moved from California to Baltimore to live with a maternal aunt. In 1893, Stein enrolled at the Harvard Annex (the precursor to Radcliffe College), following that with study at Johns Hopkin. She left Johns Hopkins to travel to Europe with her brother, Leo, in 1902. Alice B. Toklas became Stein’s lifelong companion from 1907 and with Alice’s encouragement, Stein experimented more with her writing. Her small readership increased significantly after she published The Autobiography of Alice B. Toklas in 1933. External Website

Writers Oprah Winfrey 1954- Oprah Gail Winfrey (born Orpah Gail Winfrey; January 29, 1954) is an American talk show host, television producer, actress, author, and philanthropist. She is best known for her talk show, The Oprah Winfrey Show, broadcast from Chicago, which was the highest-rated television program of its kind in history and ran in national syndication for 25 years from 1986 to 2011. Oprah Winfrey was born in Mississippi. She was named Orpah, and her single mother moved to the North, leaving the baby with her grandmother. For six years, Oprah lived on a farm with her grandmother and she credits the hard physical life of her grandmother for motivating her to have a different life. Life back with her mother in Milwaukee, Wisconsin was much more difficult for the young Oprah. She was raped by a cousin, and sexually assaulted by an uncle and family friend. An important later influence was her father who expected high standards of behaviour and high grades at school when she went to live with him in Nashville at the age of fourteen. By nineteen, Oprah Winfrey was a co-anchor for the local evening news. She popularized and revolutionized the tabloid talk show genre pioneered by Phil Donahue and in 1994, she was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. By the mid-1990s, Winfrey had reinvented her show with a focus on literature, self-improvement, mindfulness, and spirituality. Winfrey has won many accolades and Emmy Awards. External Website

Performing Arts TV Presenter Larry Grayson Larry Grayson (1923-1995) was born William Sully White to 29-year-old Ethel White in Banbury, Oxfordshire. Unmarried and under pressure from her parents to give her baby up for adoption, Ethel chose instead to organise foster care for him. Ethel advertised, and Alice and Jim Hammond from Nuneaton, northern Warwickshire, responded. Jim was a miner and Alice a homemaker. They already had 2 teenage girls, Mary (known as May) and Florence (known as Fan), but they’d always wanted a boy. When Billy was 6, his foster mother, Alice Hammond, died. Fan, who had left school at 14 and been working for 6 years, gave up her job to look after Billy and her father (May had already left home when she got married at 22). Ethel arranged work in Earl Shilton, around 14km north- east of Nuneaton. Each Wednesday afternoon, her afternoon off, Ethel took the bus to visit her boy Billy. When he was older, it was Billy who would go visit Ethel and spend a whole day with her fortnightly. Billy Hammond, as Ethel’s son was known in Nuneaton, was interested in performing on stage from the age of 5. He organised temporary stages at home and co-opted his friends to perform with him. His first professional gig was at the age of 14 at The Fife Street Working Men’s Club, where he sang 2 songs at a wedding reception. From then he had regular performances in working men’s clubs in the area. Billy’s first stage name was Billy Breen, but with the encouragement of an agent, he changed that to Larry Grayson in 1956. He earned a decent living but stayed on at his childhood home in Nuneaton. Larry Grayson didn’t make it to the “big time” until he was in his 50’s when he was signed up by television executive Michael Grade. Larry Grayson went on to present his own shows, Shut That Door and the Larry Grayson Show. Later he hosted The Generation Game from 1978 to 1982. From the late 1980s Larry Grayson rarely had television work. His final performance was in the 1994 Royal Variety Performance. According to biographer, Tony Nicolson, Larry was a forerunner of gay comedians such as Alan Carr and Graham Norton. But for a time, from the late 1980s until shortly after his death, Larry Grayson was seen as too “politically incorrect” for gay rights activists and too mainstream for media executives. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Going to the Shop Frank Golding 2015 With the support of his parents, and financial support from other sources, Frank Golding was able to get a scholarship to the Ballarat Teachers College. From here he went on to achieve a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Melbourne, and his career took him into teacher education (at the University of South Australia) and on to do a Masters at the University of London. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Doug's story: the struggle for a fair go Doug Cincotta Pentland et al. 1995 Doug was sent to the Ballarate Orphanage at the age of 5. His mother was ill and couldn't care for him so he was made a ward of the Victorian state. Diagnosed with a disability, Doug spent most of his life in institutions. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Not Normal: The uncensored account of an extraordinary true life story Paul Connolly 2018 External Website

Sport Raheem Stirling Raheem Stirling Raheem Shaquille Sterling MBE (born 8 December 1994) is an English professional footballer who plays as a winger and attacking midfielder for Premier League club Manchester City and the England national team. Sterling was born in the Maverley district of Kingston, Jamaica, and spent his early years there. His mother, Nadine Clarke, was previously a competitive athlete in the Jamaican national athletics team; Sterling credits her for his unique running style. His father was murdered in Jamaica when Sterling was two years old. At the age of five, he emigrated to Neasden, London, with his mother, and attended Copland School in Wembley, north-west London. Due to behavioural problems, Sterling spent three years at Vernon House, a specialist school in Neasden. He credits mentor Clive Ellington with changing his life & helping him channel his energy into football, shaping his journey to becoming an England and Premier League star. As a schoolboy he dreamed of being ‘the king of Wembley one day’. Peter and Sandra Reeves cared for Raheem for three years after he moved from his London home to play for Liverpool. External Website

Plays & Musicals featuring Care Exp Standing at the Sky's Edge Chris Bush and Richard Hawley 2019 Three interlinked stories about living on the Park Hill estate in Sheffield over 60 years. The second story is about Joy who moves to Sheffield with her cousins in the 1980s to escape the civl war in Liberia. She is about 14 and has had to leave her parents behind. This is a musical featuring the music of Richard Hawley. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir University Lectures and Lesson in Life Stacey Page 2015 After her mother had a serious accident, her family decided to care for Stacey who was "rotated" between them until she was 15. From age 15, Stacey worked in hairdressing salons. Encouraged by a client, she attended university as a mature age student and has now completed a degree in psychology. External Website

Performing Arts USA, Singer, Songwriter Jimmy Wayne Jimmy Wayne was born in North Carolina, and is an American country music singer and songwriter. He and his sister were in and out of foster care when their mother could not care for them. When he finished high school he worked at the Gaston Correction Facility before moving to Nashville, Tennessee where he signed a recording contract with DreamWorks Records in 2001. He released his debut single in 2003. In 2010, Jimmy Wayne sent out on a 2670km walk to raise awareness of the homelessness faced by young people aging out of the foster care system. External Website