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Actors Cary Grant Cary Grant (1904-1986) was born Archibald Alexander Leach in Bristol, UK. An English/American actor and classic, sophisticated, gentleman. His father, Elias James Leach a Tailor's Presser and his mother, Elsie Maria Leach a seamtress suffered with clinical depression. His older brother died just before his first birthday (before Cary was born) and his mother never recovered from the loss. His father had Elsie committed when Cary was 9, to an institution and told Cary that she was dead. He would be 31 before he learned she was still alive. Cary lived with his grandmother when his father remarried. He won a scholarship to a grammar school remembered for mischief and never doing his homework. In the evenings he would spend time backstage in Bristol Theatres. Age 14, he was expelled from school joined the Bob Pender Troupe of comedians and acrobats. The Local Authority wanted to know why he didn't live with his father in Southampton and consequently an agreement was made that he would train with Pender which involved touring including the U.S. At 16, Leach made the United States his home during the company’s American tour of 1920, and for the next several years he honed his performing skills. For the next 12 years he became part of the Vaudeville scene as well as performing in theatre. He got his first break into cinema in 1932 in his debut film, This is the Night. This was the beginning of his suave, charming roles as a playboy. Soon after this he became a leading Holywood actor often playing roguish characters with comedy undertones. Nominated twice for an Academy Award, in 1970 honored with Academy Honorary Award, and the Kennedy Center Honor in 1981. In 1999, the American Film Institute’s list of the 100 greatest film stars of all time named him the second greatest male star of the Golden Age of Hollywood. External Website

Television Shows Blindspot 2015 The American television series, Blindspot, features an orphan character. In the first episode, a tattooed women with no memory of who she is is left in a bag in Times Square, New York City. She's 'taken in' by the FBI who work out that the tattoos are clues to crimes. Over time, it turns out that 'Jane Doe' was born Alice Kruger in South Africa. Trained to be a child soldier, she was adopted (along with her brother) by Ellen 'Shepherd' Briggs the head of a terrorist group called Sandstorm. Briggs renamed the children Remi and Roman, a connection to the ancient story of Romulus and Remus. Aside from the main story (and Jane being forced to adopt out her own daughter), in Season 2 Ep 18 there's an investigation into a foster home where new drugs are being tested on foster children. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters The Slow Evolution of Foster Care in Australia Just Like a Family? Musgrove, Nell; Michell Deidre (Dee) 2018 Authors: Musgrove, Nell, Michell, Deidre. This book draws on archival, oral history and public policy sources to tell a history of foster care in Australia from the nineteenth century to the present day. It is, primarily, a social history which places the voices of people directly touched by foster care at the centre of the story, but also within the wider social and political debates which have shaped foster care across more than a century. The book confronts foster care’s difficult past—death and abuse of foster children, family separation, and a general public apathy towards these issues—but it also acknowledges the resilience of people who have survived a childhood in foster care, and the challenges faced by those who have worked hard to provide good foster homes and to make child welfare systems better. These are themes which the book examines from an Australian perspective, but which often resonate with foster care globally. External Website

Academic Books & Book Chapters Orphans of Empire. The fate of London's foundlings Helen Berry 2019 Orphans of Empire tells the story of what happened to the thousands of children who were raised at the London Foundling Hospital, established by Thomas Coram in 1739 and which became the most famous charity in Georgian England. Through extensive archival research, Helen Berry tells previously untold stories of what happened to former foundlings, and of the work they were engaged in during the Industrial Revolution. Included are extracts from George King's autobiography, the only surviving first-hand account written by an 18th century Foundling Hospital child. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir While the Locust Slept Peter Razor 2002 Native American writer and electronic technician, Peter Razor (b. circa 1938) was in an orphanage during his childhood. Peter Razor was born in St. Paul, Minnesota. His mother, Mary, who suffered from depression, was sent to an asylum along with her hydrocephalic son, Leonard. Relatives collected Peter’s other brother, Arnold, but Peter was with his father who abandoned him. Peter was only 10 months old when he was made a ward of the state. He was “committed to the State Public School at Owatonna” 7 months later. External Website

Radio & Podcast Uncle Jack Charles: not true blue, true blak Jack Charles 2019 Uncle Jack was forcibly removed from his mother as a baby and denied his Aboriginality. A one-off trip to Fitzroy connected him with a family he didn’t know about, and promptly landed him in jail. He talks about this and more. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Beyond the Orphanage Years Ryszard Szablicki 2009 In 2007, Ryszard Szablicki published his account of living in various Catholic institutions. Beyond the Orphanage Years picks up the story from when he was returned home to live with his parents when he was 10. Much confusion followed as Ryszard had to adjust to life outside of institutions and try to fit into a family where he felt less important than the cat. External Website

Films/Videos Enola Holmes 2020 16 year old Enola Holmes is left in the kinship care of her oldest brother, Mycroft, when her mother disappears. Enola travels to London in search of her mother, resisting attempts by Mycroft to have her sent to a finishing school. At the conclusion to the film, Enola decides to follow in the footsteps of her famous brother, Sherlock, and become a detective. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Wicked Jilly Cooper 2006 One of the main characters in Wicked is Paris Alvaston who is in care. Paris has spent 13 years in care, enduring frequent moves between foster placements and children’s homes. He suffers horrific abuse at the hands of male visitors in the children's home. Paris loves reading. Books become his escape from misery, offering solace, intellectual engagement, and hope. But he's also part of a feared pupil group, the “Wolf Pack,” At Bagley Hall, a chaotic yet elite school, headmaster Hengist Brett-Taylor schemes to merge with failing Larkminster Comprehensive. Financial motives clash with forbidden attraction, wary parents, rebellious staff, and students ready for mayhem. A new head believes in Paris' potential and nurtures his love for literature. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Goodnight Mister Tom (novel) Michelle Magorian 1981 Young Willie Beech is evacuated to the country as Britain stands on the brink of the Second World War. A sad, deprived child, he slowly begins to flourish under the care of old Tom Oakley - but his new-found happiness is shattered by a summons from his mother back in London. Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award. External Website

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