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Television Shows "Small Axe" Alex Wheatle (TV Episode 2020) ​ 2020 Alex Wheatle follows the true story of award-winning writer, Alex Wheatle (Sheyi Cole), from a young boy through his early adult years. Having spent his childhood in a mostly white institutional care home with no love or family, he finally finds not only a sense of community for the first time in Brixton, but his identity and ability to grow his passion for music and DJing. When he is thrown in prison during the Brixton Uprising of 1981, he confronts his past and sees a path to healing. External Website

Writers Margaret Humphreys ​ ​ Margaret Humphreys (born 1944) is a British Social Worker who exposed the scandal of Britain's child migration schemes. In 1986 Margaret Humphreys, investigated a woman's claim that, aged four, she had been put on a boat to Australia by the British government. At first incredulous, Margaret discovered that this was just the tip of an enormous iceberg. Up to 150,000 children, some as young as three years old, had been deported from children's homes in Britain and shipped off to a 'new life' in distant parts of the Empire, right up until as recently as 1970. Many were told that their parents were dead, and parents were told that their children had been adopted. In fact, for many children it was to be a life of horrendous physical and sexual abuse far away from everything they knew. Humphreys founded the Child Migrants Trust (CMT) in 1987 and has worked tirelessly to promote public awareness of the needs of former child migrants- to reclaim their identity and reunite with their families.Indeed, well over 1,000 families have been reunited after decades of separation thanks to the Child Migrants Trust. The book has been made into a full length feature film (Emily Watson plays Margaret) called 'Oranges and Sunshine' - that's what the children were promised when they left their homeland. External Website

Television Shows The Underground Railway ​ 2021 Based on the book by the same name by Colson Whitehead, The Underground Railway is a historical drama following the adventures of Cora Randall (abandoned by her mother as a small child) as she escapes with her friend Caesar from enslavement in the south of America. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Steering the Mothership: The Complexities of Mothering. 'Like a Duck to Water'. Rosie Canning 2014 Rosie Canning wrote a chapter 'Like a Duck to Water', for Steering the Mothership. When her first son was born in 1981, new mothers usually stayed in hospital for about a week. In the bed next to her was another new mother. They chatted and the mother told Canning she was a social worker. Canning told her she’d been brought up in care. There follows reflections on being in care without love and how easy it was for Canning to care for and love her newborn son unlike the Social Worker who had problems and eventually asked to be moved to a different bed. External Website

Television Shows They Do it with Mirrors ​ 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

Fiction featuring Care Experience The late Train to Gipys Hill Alan Johnson 2021 As a teenager, Alan Johnson (b. 1950) wanted to become a writer, but he ended up as a member of the British parliament. He finally took up writing after he retired from politics, publishing his first memoir to critical acclaim in 2014. In this he talks about being raised by his single mum, and after she dies when he is 13, by his older sister. Alan Johnson's first work of fiction, is a thriller The Late Train to Gipsy Hill, published in 2021. Appropriately, the hero is a young man raised by a single mother. There is, too, a character who was raised in care - in Russia. Unfortunately, (because its a stereotype) Miranchuk is a thug, a clever man who loves violence and who has recently made a commitment to join the 3rd of the 3 key Russian organisations, the Krovnyye Bratya or an organised crime group (the other options are the military and the secret service) which, writes, Johnson, all interconnected anyway. The Late Train to Gipsy Hill is a timely - because of the invasion of Ukraine - thriller, fast paced and well written. External Website

Authors J I set off on an unchartered course...and found myself drifting ➝ Back to Top

Television Shows The Coroner ​ 2016 The remains of a newborn baby wrapped in 1970s newspaper is found in a cottage condemned by coastal erosion. A nearby closed children's home, Greyvale, and interviewing the uncooperative former residents and staff leads Jane and Davey to three sisters; one of whom, Lisa Millar is missing. Lee Millar, the brother, another resident of the home, visiting from America, who knows more than he is admitting and has tried to protect his sisters lead Jane to mistakenly suspect incest. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Foster Claire Keegan 2010 A small girl is sent to live with her mother's people on a farm in rural Ireland, without knowing when she will return home. In the strangers' house, she finds a warmth and affection she has not known before and slowly begins to blossom in their care. And then a secret is revealed, and suddenly, she realizes how fragile her idyll is. Winner of the Davy Byrnes Memorial Prize, Foster is now published in a revised and expanded version. Beautiful, sad and eerie, it is a story of astonishing emotional depth, showcasing Claire Keegan's great accomplishment and talent. External Website

Television Shows Unforgotten (Series 5) ​ 2023 Unforgotten is an English crime drama series which first aired in 2015 and which starred Nicola Walker for the first 4 series. In Series 5, there is a complicated story involving intergenerational trauma for 4 generations of a family at one end of the social spectrum, while at the other end there is immense privilege, including non-accountability for committing crimes. Included in the causes of intergenerational trauma are rape, racism, kinship care, abuse at the hands of a cult leader, foster care and homelessness. Several members of the family have criminal records. External Website

Poets Yusuf P. McCormack Yusuf P. McCormack ​ Yusuf Paul McCormack was an Artist, Poet, Writer/Author and Trainer, based in Rugby, Warwickshire. He took early retirement from the civil service in 2015 and wrote his first verse in November of that year. It was an epiphany moment and, consumed, Yusuf wrote solidly for the next 12 months about his childhood growing up in children's institutions. In December 2016 he began to translate his written work on to canvas, where he attempted to explore the emotions that he was unable to voice as a child. His work explores the world he experienced, felt and witnessed as a child who was illegitimate, mixed raced and rejected. Yusuf’s art was his intuitive way of working using memory and imagination as a way to develop his own style. He used his combined experiences as an artist, a child of the state, to inform those who genuinely want to improve and sustain better outcomes for those who never chose their start in life. Yusuf died in January 2021, one of the over 150,000 deaths in the UK from Covid-19 during the world pandemic. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles Neil Morrissey revisits his children's home roots | Society | The Guardian Raekha Prasad 2011 The actor tells Raekha Prasad what inspired him to be involved in a documentary about growing up in care. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience The Underground Railroad Colson Whitehead 2017 Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction 2017. Cora is an orphan character, abandoned by her mother and a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. All the slaves lead a hellish existence, but Cora has it worse than most; she is an outcast even among her fellow Africans and she is approaching womanhood, where it is clear even greater pain awaits. When Caesar, a slave recently arrived from Virginia, tells her about the Underground Railroad, they take the perilous decision to escape to the North.In Whitehead's razor-sharp imagining of the antebellum South, the Underground Railroad has assumed a physical form: a dilapidated box car pulled along subterranean tracks by a steam locomotive, picking up fugitives wherever it can. Cora and Caesar's first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But its placid surface masks an infernal scheme designed for its unknowing black inhabitants. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher sent to find Cora, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom. At each stop on her journey, Cora encounters a different world. As Whitehead brilliantly recreates the unique terrors for black people in the pre-Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America, from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. External Website

Writers Joy Williams ​ 1942-2006 Joy Williams (1942 - 2006) was an Aboriginal Australian author of poetry. A Wiradjuri woman, Joy Williams was born Eileen Williams to Doretta Williams. She was removed from her Aboriginal family at the Erambie Mission at Cowra in New South Wales when she was a tiny baby and taken to Bomaderry Home near Nowra, around 335km south-east of Cowra. At the age of six, Joy was transferred to Lutanda Children’s Home in Wentworth Falls, 228km north of Nowra. After the founder of Lutanda—Florence Dalwood—died in 1949, Lutanda (and Joy Williams) was relocated to an orphanage 90km east of Nowra to suburban Boundary Road, Pennant Hills. During the 1970s Joy Williams enrolled at Wollongong University to do a Bachelor of Arts where she became interested in Black Literature. She also become involved in the Royal Commission into Black Deaths in Custody and in other Aboriginal community groups. Joy Williams’ poetry appears in over 65 publications. External Website