Poets Mikhail Lermontov Mikhail Lermontov Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov (1814-1841) grew up in the kinship care of his grandmother. Lermontov's mother died when he was only 3. His maternal grandmother, Yelizaveta Arsenyeva, came to an agreement with the boy's father that Mikhail live with her until he was 16. He saw little of his father while living with his grandmother who provided well for her (often ill) grandson. Mikhail Lermontov began writing poetry while at Moscow University. Lermontov was only 26 years of age when he died. At the time he'd had published only one collection of poetry but 3 volumes were published posthumously. The town of Lermontov is named after him. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë 2014 Jane Eyre, novel by Charlotte Brontë, first published in 1847 as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography, with Currer Bell (Brontë’s pseudonym) listed as the editor. Widely considered a classic, it gave new truthfulness to the Victorian novel with its realistic portrayal of the inner life of a woman, noting her struggles with her natural desires and social condition. A gothic novel, it opens with Jane, an orphaned, isolated ten-year-old, living with the Reed family that dislikes her. She is later sent to the austere Lowood Institution, a charity school, where she and the other girls are mistreated; “Lowood,” as the name suggests, is the “low” point in Jane’s young life. In the face of such adversity, however, she gathers strength and confidence. She grows in strength, excels at school, becomes a governess, and falls in love with Edward Rochester. After being deceived by him, Jane goes to Marsh End, where she regains her spirituality and discovers her own strength. By novel's end, Jane is a strong, independent woman. Charlotte Brontë's Jane Eyre still raises relevant questions to readers today.Jane Eyre is a Bildungsroman which follows the experiences of its eponymous heroine, including her growth to adulthood and her love for Mr. Rochester, the brooding master of Thornfield Hall. External Website

Radio & Podcast Tolstoy: War and the Russian Empire Empire 2023 A reflection on the life of Leo Tolstoy with biographer Rosamund Bartlett. Tolstoy was orphaned by the age of 9 and lived with relatives. There is some discussion in the podcast of the impact this would have had on him, that he often felt like an outsider and indulged in some ‘wild’ behaviour as a young man. The podcast continues with Tolstoy’s involvement in Russian wars and his later dissent against Russian imperialism. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Friend in Need Elizabeth Coxhead 1957 Isobel Fairlie is a child welfare officer who provides amusing sketches of the ‘deprived and delinquent’ children she works with. Isobel 's early success as ‘a sort of paid interferer’ is effortless as she involves the lives and affections of the most difficult children, the most hopeless parents, even her own friends and perfect strangers, in each others’ problems even though there is a cost. (Available to read online, see link) External Website

Television Shows The Rainmaker 2025 The Rainmaker (2025) is a legal drama based on the eponymous novel by John Grisham published in 1995. A young lawyer, Rudy Baylor (Milo Callaghan) takes on a wrongful death suit involving an African American man who died while undergoing hospital care. The hospital alleged that the man had died of an overdose, but they were covering up the murder of the man by one of their nurses, Melvin Pritcher (Dan Fogler). Melvin Pritcher turns out to have been in & out of foster care as a child because of his mother’s substance problems. *spoiler alert* Melvin Pritcher ends up in prison along with one of the lawyers covering up the hospital’s cover up. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Your Sexuality Is the Least Interesting Thing About You: Rita Mae Brown on RubyFruit Jungle's Rerelease Llana Masad 2015 The author's reflection on being asked by her aunt whether I’d read Rita Mae Brown's stunning lesbian coming-of-age story, Rubyfruit Jungle. "When I told her I hadn’t, her eyes popped open wide and she rushed to her bookshelf—but her copy was buried behind too many other books." External Website

Radio & Podcast Edgar Allan Poe (Podcast) In Our Time (Poe) 2023 In this episode of In Our Time, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss Edgar Allan Poe’s childhood with the Allans in Virginia as well as his later life as a literary critic and poet. They also discuss Poe as the originator of detective fiction with his character C. Auguste Dupin. Dupin first appeared in Poe’s short story ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ in 1841. Melvyn Bragg expresses surprise that on reading ‘The Murders in the Rue Morgue’ he is reminded of Arthur Conan Doyle. According to Bragg, it is obvious that Doyle stole from Poe. Another way of looking at Poe and Dupin that is discussed is that Edgar Allan Poe set up a powerful template for future detective stories. External Website

Radio & Podcast Alan Warner: Movern Callar Bookclub (Warner) 2024 In this episode of Bookclub, Alan Warner talks about his debut novel, Morvern Callar (1995), which won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1996. Morvern Callar was in foster care as a child. As a young adult she is working at a supermarket in a small town. She wakes up on Xmas morning to find her boyfriend has killed himself. She takes the manuscript of his unpublished novel and sends it to the publisher recommended in the young man’s suicide note. However, Morvern passes the novel off as her own. External Website

Films/Videos Boys Town (Film) 1938 Boys Town (1938) is a film starring Spencer Tracy as Father Edward J. Flanagan. Although mostly fictional, the film is based on an actual man, Father Edward J. Flanagan, and the home he established in 1917 in Omaha, Nebraska. In the film, Father Flanagan visits a convicted murderer who talks about his dreadful childhood as a ward of the state. Flanagan is compelled to do better for homeless boys and builds a sanctuary he calls Boys Town. One boy, Whitey Marsh (Michey Rooney), challenges Flanagan’s belief that there are no bad boys. Boys Town was a box office success, earning over $2million in profit and Best Actor Academy Award for Spencer Tracy. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Golly in the Cupboard Phil Frampton 2004 Born in the seaside village of St Agnes, Cornwall in 1953, Phil Frampton wanted to discover the reasons behind his abandonment as a child. For several decades he was unable to unwrapt he mysteries. In 1999, Phil finally got to access official records kept on him as a child. Using these records and letters, Phil unfolds an odyssey of joy, rejection, love, racism, drama, abuse, intrigue and deception, and records his reaction to his discoveries. External Website

Films/Videos Hostile Territory 2022 Hostile Territory (2022) is another, more recent film that takes up the topic of the Orphan Trains. During the Civil War, Union soldier Jack Calgrove (Brian Presley) is presumed dead. After his wife dies, the children, presumed orphans, are sent away on an Orphan Train. When the war is over, Jack Calgrove goes in search of his children. While Jack is successful in reuniting with his children, the film highlights the broader issues of families being torn apart by war. External Website

Poets Benjamin Zephaniah (Poet) Benjamin Zephaniah Benjamin Zephaniah (1958-2023) was a British poet, writer and actor. Benjamin Zephaniah was born in Handsworth, Birmingham. He left school at age 14. He was spent time in a youth detention centre, and later in prison. Zephaniah moved to London in 1979 and his first collection of poems, Pen Rhythm, was published. He performed at demonstrations, protesting against racism and the British ‘justice’ system. He published The Dread Affair in 1985 and Rasta Time in Palestine in 1990, the latter combining poetry and travelogue after a trip to Palestine. Zephaniah continued publishing his poetry through the 1990s, becoming known as a ‘dub poet’, and he also wrote several novels including Refugee Boy (2001). His autobiography, The Life and Thymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, was published in 2018. Benjamin Zephaniah also had many acting appearances over the years, from minor roles in shows such as EastEnders (1993) to playing preacher Jeremiah “Jimmy” Jesus in Peaky Blinders between 2013 and 2022. Benjamin Zephaniah died on 7 December 2023 after being diagnosed with a brain tumour 8 weeks previously. External Website

Sport Justin Fashanu Justin Fashanu Justinus “Justin” Fashanu was an English footballer who spent part of his childhood in care after his parents separated, living in a Barnardo’s home before being fostered with his brother in Norfolk. He rose to prominence as a forward for Norwich City and made history as the first Black footballer to command a £1 million transfer, joining Nottingham Forest. Later in his career he publicly came out as gay, becoming the first openly gay professional footballer, but faced intense hostility as a result. In 1998, amid allegations of sexual assault in the United States, he returned to London and very sadly died by suicide two months later, leaving a note expressing his sense of having been presumed guilty and his wish not to further embarrass his family. External Website

Writers Andi Brierley Andi Brerley is based in Leeds, UK. Since he was released from prison in 2005, he has become a Youth Justice Specialist and published author of two books on that subject. In addition to writing, Andi is also a public speaker and he works with young people using the PACT (Presence, Attunement, Connection & Trust) approach he has developed. External Website

Television Shows The Monster of Florence 2025 The Monster of Florence (2025) is a Italian crime series based on Italy’s most notorious serial killer case. The series explores the investigation into 8 double homicides in the countryside around Florence between 1968 & 1985. Although the killings to a long & complex investigation, with some individuals jailed, the original ‘monster’ has never been identified. In the first double homicide, a 6-year-old boy, Natalino Mele, is in the car when his mother, Barbara Locii (Francesco Olia) is murdered along with her lover. With his father imprisoned, the boy ends up in an orphanage. We see little of Natalino Mele for the rest of the series, although he does later testify that it was not his father who did the killing. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Sunday's Child? - a Memoir Leslie Baruch Brent 2009 Professor Leslie Baruch Brent (known in the scientific world as Leslie Brent) arrived in England late in 1938 in the first of the many Kindertransports. In England he went to Bunce Court School. After WWII, Brent became a British citizen and earned his PhD at University College London. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Eyes Like Mine Sheena 2017 This is a review of Eyes Like Mine by Sheena Kamal. Research assistant to a small private investigation outfit in downtown Vancouver, mixed-race Nora Watts takes a 5 a.m. phone call. The grief of a couple in search of their missing daughter is unlikely to improve her lot, particularly when she is hit with the news that the missing girl is the child that she gave up for adoption fifteen years ago. Deciding to search for her daughter brings troubled Nora Watts into contact with a past that she's spent years trying to forget. It's an investigation that takes her on a harrowing journey of deception and violence - one that will eventually lead her to a final showdown with a figure from her own dark past. And all to save a girl she wishes had never been born. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Golden Age Joan London 2014 The Golden Age (2014) is a novel by Australian writer Joan London. Most of the story revolves around a children’s polio convalescent home called The Golden Age and which operated in Leederville, Western Australia from 1949 until 1959. 13-year-old Frank Gold is a refugee from Hungary. Unable to walk because of polio, he becomes passionate about poetry on meeting another patient, Sullivan. He’d already been separated from his parents during WWII when his mother left him for his safety with her friend Julia and another woman, Hedwiga Frank becomes friends with Elsa Briggs, who is about 6 months younger than Frank and born in Australia. She doesn’t understand Frank’s stories of hiding in an attic during WWII, of how “… ordinary people, neighbours, could kill each other” (188). Joan London gently explores the difficulties for children being separated from their families while convalescing, of how the experience changed them and their relationships with parents & siblings. External Website

Radio & Podcast A Journey through the Disney Animated Classics Daniel Lammin Daniel Lammin in conversation with social historian Frank Golding, who was in foster care and an orphanage as a child. They talk about Disney’s swashbuckling adventure 'Peter Pan', discuss the real experiences of children removed from their families, the complex roles of mothers and fathers in a child’s life, and the reality of never wanting to grow up. External Website

Performing Arts Dancer, Yellow Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins The Wiggles (1991 – ongoing) are a popular Australian children’s music group with an international reach. Yellow Wiggle Tsehay Hawkins joined the group in 2021. Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia in 2005, Tsehay Hawkins was adopted in 2006 by Robyn and Reg Hawkins and grew up in a small-town in NSW. From an early age, Tsehay was encouraged to dance and she took up ballet, tap and Jazz. The Hawkins made a point of nurturing Tsehay’s connection to her cultural heritage and she incorporated Ethiopian and West African style dance in her repertoire too. Although Tsehay Hawkins has not been able to find any information about her birth parents, in 2024 she returned to Ethiopia as a keynote speaker for a fundraising event for a local orphanage. External Website