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Television Shows Mystery Road: Origin 2022 Mystery Road: Origin is the 3rd series in the popular Australian crime series. Series 3 is directed by Dylan River and is a prequel to first 2 Mystery Road series with Mark Coles Smith playing a young version of Jay Swan (played by Care Experienced actor Aaron Pederson in the 1st 2 series). It's not clear, but it seems that the 16-year-old boy whose Jack, was orphaned at the age of 12. He then ran away from the mission where he'd been living and was independent from then on. At the end of the series, a little girl is in the kinship care of her aunt because her parents have been imprisoned. It's not clear, but it seems that the 16 year old boy who was murdered 8 years previously may also have been in foster or kinship care. External Website

Television Shows Sanditon 2019 Sanditon, a British historical drama based on an unfinished novel by Jane Austen, is a salient reminder that the age of adulthood has varied over time. In Sanditon, there are 2 'wards' or young women under the guardianship of older people. Clara Brereton (Lily Sacofsky) is declared by Lady Denham (Anne Reid) to be her ward in the opening episode. There is much more discussion about Sidney Parker (Theo James) being the legal guardian for 19-year-old Georgiana Lambe. During the Regency Era, the period in which Sanditon is set, the 'age of majority' was 21. It reduced to 18 in 1970 in England. External Website

Television Shows Until I Kill You 2024 Until I Kill You (2024) is a British true crime series based on Delia Balmer’s book, Living With A Serial Killer (2017). Set in London during the 1990s, Delia Balmer (Anna Maxwell Martin) is a nurse who has a live-in relationship with a violent man, John Sweeney (Shaun Evans). In Episode 3, Delia has recovered – physically – from an assault by Sweeney. One day she meets a kind, gentle man called David (Kevin Doyle) who was an adoptee. In Episode 4, David supports Delia as she gives evidence in court against Sweeney. The couple subsequently split up and we don’t see David again. External Website

Writers Kate Shayler 1950- Australian writer and former teacher, Kate Shayler (b. 1950) was in institutions as a child. Kate’s mother died when she was 4, and Kate was taken to live at the BurnsidePresbyterian Homes for Children in North Parramatta, NSW, along with her older brother and younger sister. For three years Kate lived a safe if regimented life along with 30 other children at Reid Home which catered for children up to the age of seven. Her father visited regularly. After 12 years in the Burnside Homes, Kate left, moved in with her father and began paid work in administration. Later Kate went on to university and became a teacher, a job she found “rewarding, challenging, interesting, enriching and fun” and which she did for 20 years. Kate Shayler retired from teaching in 1996 after she met her partner, Dave, who had also grown up in an institution. Kate has published 3 books to date—one a sequel to The Long Way Home, A Tuesday Thing (2004) and the other a collection of life stories from Australians who also lived in Burnside Homes, Burnished (2013). External Website

Writers John Masefield 1878-1967 John Edward Masefield (1878 – 1967) was an English poet and writer, and Poet Laureate from 1930 until 1967. Masefield was born into a comfortable middle class family, lived in the country, went to boarding school, and was encouraged to read. But first his mother died and then his father became unwell and Jack (along with siblings) became the ward of paternal uncle, William Masefield. Jack was taken out of boarding school and sent off to sea which he did not enjoy. Among Masefield's best known works are the children's novels The Midnight Folk and The Box of Delights, and the poems The Everlasting Mercy and "Sea-Fever". External Website

Television Shows Water Under the Bridge (tv show) 1980 A miniseries based on Sumner Locke Elliott's book of the same name. The story revolves around a young man who was in foster care as a boy and his journey from Sydney to London. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Navigating My Way to a Bachelor of Arts Degree in the 1960s: A Care Leaver's Journey Karen Laura-Lee Wilson 2015 Karen was 7 years old when she was dropped off by her mother to an orphanage in Brisbane, Queensland. She wasn't there for long but the negative impact has been life long. Karen was awarded a scholarship to attend university in 1960; university wasn't easy by she persisted and by 1969 was a qualified librarian. External Website

Television Shows Joe Swash: Teens in Care 2023 BBC1 documentary follows Joe Swash as he explores stories of teens 16+ in care. His motivation is personal, as his mum, Kiffy, has been a foster carer for over 15 years. Joe wants to spend time with teens across the UK who live in foster care, in residential children’s homes, and some who left at 18 and are trying to make it alone, to show what growing up as a teenager in care is really like. His journey follows the Independent Review of Children’s Social Care, which promised a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity to transform the children’s social care system’. Through this experience, Joe also sees at first hand the work of foster carers and frontline workers dedicated to helping teens in care, as he seeks to find out how some of the issues they encounter in the care system might be tackled better. External Website

Television Shows Reacher 2022 A series based on Lee Child's first book, Killing Floor (1997) and featuring his Jack Reacher character, is available Amazon Prime. The series stars Alan Ritchson as Jack Reacher, retired military police officer, self-described hobo, and seeker after justice. In the first series based at Margrave, a small town in Georgia, Reacher teams up with a couple of local cops to solve a major crime and numerous murders. One of the the local cops is Roscoe Conklin (Willa Fitzgerald) who, in Episode 6, explains that both her parents died in a car accident when she was a child. She was in the back seat of the car. Roscoe then lived with an uncle. External Website

Writers Isaac Newton 1642-1726 Sir Isaac Newton (1642 – 1726/27) was an English mathematician, physicist, astronomer, theologian, and author (described in his own day as a "natural philosopher") who is widely recognised as one of the most influential scientists of all time and as a key figure in the scientific revolution. Newton was born in a small English village, Woolsthorpe. His father had died 3 months previously and his mother abandoned him 2 years later. His mother, Hannah Ayscough, remarried, moved to another village with husband Barnabas Smith (the couple had 3 children), and left Isaac with his grandmother. For nine years—until his stepfather died in 1653—the child saw little to nothing of his mother and grew to hate his stepfather intensely. After his mother was widowed a second time, she wanted Isaac to manage her property, but the boy was relieved of this obligation when it become apparent he wouldn’t do it well. Instead he was sent to a grammar school—a university preparatory school—and arrived at Trinity College, Cambridge in 1661. He graduated in 1665 and became a staff member at Trinity College in 1667. The work considered his most important was the Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica (published in 1687) in which he set out the 3 laws of motion—3 fundamental laws of physics—and the law of universal gravity. He also invented a new type of mathematics, calculus, and the reflecting telescope (which uses mirrors to reflect light). Newton was knighted in 1705. External Website

Films/Videos Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story 2022 During the 2 part documentary (on Netflix) Jimmy Savile: A British Horror Story, Welsh journalist Meirion Jones, speaks of being concerned as a small child at the free access Jimmy Savile had to Duncroft Approved School in Surrey. He would visit his aunt there; she was the Head of the School which housed girls aged between 15 & 17 who were regarded as "emotionally disturbed". Surrey police in 2015 said there were 46 sexual assaults by Savile of 22 of those girls while Savile was visiting there. There are other allegations of Savile sexually abusing children in other children's homes too. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Heart's Invisible Furies John Boyne (3) 2017 The Heart’s Invisible Furies (2017) by Irish writer John Boyne explores social change in the Republic of Ireland through the life of an adoptee, Cyril Avery. In 1945, Cyril’s mother, Catherine Goggin, is banished from her hometown after she is denounced by the local priest. Catherine moves to Dublin and gives her son up for adoption. Cyril’s adoptive parents, Charles and Maude Avery, leave the boy much to his own devices. Cyril realises early that he is gay but homosexuality is a criminal offence in Ireland and the young man is conflicted, resorting to secret sexual encounters with men but deeply unhappy with this. When he finally moves to Amsterdam in 1973, where homosexuality is legal, Cyril lives openly as a gay man, falls in love, and informally adopts a child with his partner. External Website

News - broadcast, print, internet, magazine articles Almost 70 mass unmarked child graves discovered by ITV News investigation into mother and baby homes Sarah Corker 2025 An ITV News investigation has revealed that 67 babies who died at Hopedene Maternity Home, a Salvation Army institution for unmarried mothers in Newcastle (1950–1973), were buried in mass unmarked graves, often without their families' knowledge. Testimonies describe the home as cruel and prison-like, with forced labour, lack of care, and a high infant mortality rate, prompting renewed calls for a government apology over Britain’s forced adoption scandal. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir I was just trying to matter David Jackson 2011 Recipes for Survival: Stories of Hope and Healing by Survivors of the State ‘Care’ System in Australia is a collection of stories by those who have grown up in care in Australia during the 20th century and is therefore contribution to a growing body of literature on the experiences of the Forgotten Australians. External Website

Academic Articles From Folktales to Fiction: Orphan Characters in Children’s Literature Melanie A. Kimball 1999 Orphan heroes and heroines are familiar characters in children’s literature, particularly in the fiction of the nineteenth and early twentieth century. This type of protagonist has its roots in folktales. An analysis of fifty folktales from different cultures reveals that, while the details of or- phan stories vary, there are some universal elements. A comparison of these patterns to a literary orphan story, The Secret Garden, demonstrates how the patterns found in orphan folktales were adapted and applied in children’s fiction. External Website

Radio & Podcast Mother of Lion, Sue Brierley, tells her story Sue Brierley 2020 Sue Brierley is the adoptive mother of Saroo, the Indian boy whose remarkable story of finding his Indian birth mother is told in the film “Lion”. Sue has now written her side of the story, and she talks to Paul Barclay about her book, "Lioness". External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Representing Aboriginal Childhood The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia Joanne Faulkner 2023 Representing Aboriginal Childhood: The Politics of Memory and Forgetting in Australia (2023) by by Australian academic Joanne Faulker investigates ways in which Aboriginal children have been represented over the decades. Faulker uses literature and film, as well as public discourse including from the government and by news outlets, to show that representations of Aboriginal children tend to occlude colonial violence. Reference to Jedda (1955) is made and to the Bringing them Home Report (1997) about the separation of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children from their families. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Storied Life of A.J. Fikry (Paperback) Gabrielle Zevin 2023 A.J. Fikry, the grumpy owner of Island Books, is going through a hard time: his bookshop is failing, he has lost his beloved wife, and his prized possession - a rare first edition book has been stolen. Over time, he has given up on people, and even the books in his store, instead of offering solace, are yet another reminder of a world that is changing too rapidly. But one day A.J. finds two-year-old Maya sitting on the bookshop floor, with a note attached to her asking the owner to look after her. His life - and Maya's - is changed forever. External Website

Writers Mary Douglas 1921-2007 Dame Mary Douglas, (25 March 1921 – 16 May 2007) was a British anthropologist, known for her writings on human culture and symbolism, whose area of speciality was social anthropology. Mary Douglas was the first child of Phyllis Twomey and Gilbert Tew, who worked for the Indian Civil Service. Her parents were on leave and travelling home from Gilbert’s posting in Burma when Mary was born in San Remo, Italy. When their parents returned to India, Mary and her sister were sent to live with their maternal grandparents in Totnes, an historical market town in Devon, in the south west of England, until they were old enough to attend boarding school. They then went to Sacred Heart Convent in London. Mary went on to Oxford University after school, followed by working in the Colonial Office during World War II. It was while she was serving in the Colonial Office that Mary Douglas became intrigued by anthropology, and she went back to Oxford in 1946 to take up the subject. She commenced her PhD in 1949, doing her fieldwork in the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of Congo). In 1966, Douglas published Purity and Danger, the best known of her work. She argued that humans divide the world into binary categories, eg, clean and dirty, things that should be on the floor and things that shouldn’t. Things/people out of place are considered dangerous. External Website

Writers James MacVeigh James MacVeigh is a reformed offender who managed to reinvent himself through writing. He has written biographies, local history and crime paperbacks and e-books as well as plays for stage and radio. His father kicked him out in 1963 at the age of 16. After he was caught breaking into cars, he was sent to a Detention Centre. Borstal followed. He wrote Gaskin (1982) about Graham Gaskin who was placed in care as a baby after his mother committed suicide by throwing herself from the Wallasey ferry. Graham was passed from children's home, to foster family, to institution, often being mistreated by those in authority. As he came of age, Graham had nowhere to turn but to a life on the streets, eventually living by his wits around the world. External Website