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Writers Anthony Burgess 1917-1993 John Anthony Burgess Wilson, (1917 – 1993), who published under the name Anthony Burgess, was an English writer and composer. John’s mother, Elizabeth Burgess, was a singer and dancer known on music hall posters as the Beautiful Belle Burgess. His father, Joseph Wilson, was a bookkeeper by day and a piano player by night. John’s mother and older sister, Muriel, died in the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. From then, John was in the care of his mother’s sister, Ann Bromley, until his father remarried in 1922. John Burgess Wilson graduated from the Victoria University of Manchester in 1940 with a degree in English Literature. For 6 years he served in the Army after which he taught in various colleges and was English master at Banbury Grammar School in 1950. While he was working as an education officer in Malaya and Borneo his first published novel, Time for a Tiger, appeared under the name of Anthony Burgess. He wrote 2 more novels with a Malayan setting before he was discharged from the British Colonial Services because of ill health. Back in England from 1959, Burgess became a prolific writer. By the time Clockwork Orange appeared, he had published another 6 novels. He also worked as a literary journalist and contributed to television and radio programs. Anthony Burgess was also a well-known composer of more than 200 pieces of music, including a libretti for the Glasgow production of Scottish Opera’s Oberon in 1985. External Website

Authors R Inside Story: Mini ➝ Resistance ➝ Rocks ➝ Redress: Breaking The Silence ➝ Re-homing': America's shocking trade in unwanted children ➝ Rabbit-Proof Fence ➝ Back to Top

Autobiography/Memoir Dussa and the Maiden's Prayer Walter Jacobsen 1994 Walter Jacobsen reflects on the childhood he spent in the Parkville Children's Home, and in foster care in rural Victoria, South Australia External Website

Authors H Herbert Hoover ➝ Ishbel Holmes ➝ Rico Hinson-King ➝ Hermann Hesse ➝ Kerry Hudson ➝ Eric Hobsbawm ➝ Kathryn Harrison ➝ Frances Ellen Watkins Harper (Writer) ➝ Janet Hitchman ➝ Patricia Highsmith ➝ Langston Hughes ➝ Paolo Hewitt ➝ Michel Houellebecqu ➝ A. M. Homes ➝ Richard Hoggart ➝ David Hill ➝ Jan de Hartog ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast The green suitcase and the secret family Conversations 2022 Betty O'Neil grew up during the 1950s in country NSW with her single mother, Nora. Because Nora worked in hotels, in life-in positions - Betty was often in foster care with local families. Betty didn't know her father as a child; he'd deserted Nora before Betty was born. Decades later Nora travels to Lublin in Poland to found out about him and his role in the Polish resistance. External Website

Poets Emilia Lanier Emilia Lanier Emilia Lanyer (1569-1645) was the first woman in England to declare herself a poet. She published Salve Deus Rex Judaeorum in 1611. Baptized Aemilia Bassano in 1569, Aemilia was the daughter of a court musician Baptist Bassano and his wife, Margaret Johnson. After her father died when Aemilia was 7, she spent some of her childhood living with Susan Bertie, Countess of Kent. Whether Bertie fostered the child or whether Aemilia was a servant is not clear, but it was while living with Bertie that the girl received a formal education and learned Latin. At the age of 18, Aemilia became the mistress of Henry Carey, Queen Elizabeth 1’s Lord Chamberlain. She was apparently married off toAlphonso Lanyer, a court musician, after she became pregnant by Henry Carey in 1592. Alphonso Lanyer’s death in 1613 and Emilia Lanyer supported herself for several years by running a school. External Website

Television Shows Lace 1984 Lace (1984) is an American television series based on the eponymous novel by British writer Shirley Conran (b. 1932). Film star Lili (Phoebes Cates) was put up for adoption as a newborn. The story begins around 1980 when Lili travels to an abandoned chateau in the Swiss Alps. The chateau was once a prestigious boarding school and Lili is there to meet with a person who has been paying money to family which, back in 1960, agreed to take on the child of a student who was born ‘out of wedlock’. Lili, with the help of a private investigator, eventually finds the woman who gave birth to her. External Website

Blogs/Web Pages/Articles FosterWiki Sarah Anderson 2021 FosterWiki, founded in 2021 by foster carer and NHS psychotherapist Sarah Anderson, is a free, independent community platform sharing foster carers’ knowledge to support, inform, and inspire, addressing the challenge of accessing reliable fostering information quickly. External Website

Films/Videos Home at Last 1988 Home at Last (1988) is a story about an orphaned 13-year-old boy who is sent via the Orphan Tree to Nebraska. In Nebraska, Billy (Adrien Brody in his 1st movie) is adopted by a family which has recently migrated from Sweden to the USA and lost their older son. There are some adjustments to be made of course, for both Billy and his new family. But eventually Billy feels Home At Last. External Website

Children's Fiction The Coral Island RM Ballantyne 1857 "According to several sources, William Golding got the idea of Lord of the Flies from the children’s novel, The Coral Island: A Tale of the Pacific Ocean (1957) by Scottish writer RM Ballantye. The Coral Island was one of the first examples of fiction for children to feature children exclusively as heroes. Three boys are marooned on an island in the South Pacific, the survivors of a shipwreck. One of the boys, Ralph, is the narrator, reflecting on his childhood adventure. The Coral Island was enormously successful. Today, there are themes of imperialism and colonisation that are questioned and considered outdated but it was voted one of the top Scottish novels in 2006 at the 15th International World Wide Web Conference." External Website

Authors Y The Lotus Shoes ➝ Children of Ever After ➝ Back to Top

Radio & Podcast Today in Focus: Bangladesh The Guardian 2023 A three part series on the Bangladeshi children who were taken from Bangladesh in the 1970s. As a consequence of the Bangladesh Liberation War 1971, and the birth of thousands of babies born to women who had been captured and raped by Pakistani troops, an international adoption campaign was launched. Thousands of “war babies” were adopted overseas, for example, in Denmark, England, Sweden and Canada. External Website

Academic Articles It’s My Journey: It’s My Life! Care leavers and access to social care files Care Leaver Association 2016 It’s My Journey: It’s My Life! Care leavers and access to social care files A report on a series of multi agency roundtable discussions on Data Protection, Subject Access Requests and Support External Website

Children's Fiction What Mummies Are Made Of by Stephanie Hutton Storgy Kids 2018 STORGY Kids is an online magazine for children and young people. They publish the best short stories we can find for 8 to 12-year-old readers, whilst also providing a space for Young Adult fiction too, as well as book reviews and interviews with authors. Stephanie Hutton's short story explores 'What Mummies Are Made Of' by some children in care. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Rememberings Sinead O'Connor 2021 Irish singer-songwriter Sinead O'Connor published her memoir, Rememberings, in 2021. The book covers her difficult childhood with a mother who was a habitual thief and violent in the way she treated Sinead. One of the worst stories is when Marie O’Connor had Sinead sit in the front passenger seat of the car and then deliberately rammed the car into another one. When Sinead was fourteen, she was caught stealing a pair of gold shoes for a friend to wear to a concert. She was then sent to the An Grianán Training Centre, once a notorious Magdalene laundry. She later wrote that the experience overall was a positive one. External Website

Activists Accessing Social Services Child Care Files: The Life and Importance of Graham Gaskin (1959 – 2002) Graham Gaskin 1959-2002 It is not widely known, amongst people who grew up in care before 1989, that we owe our rights to access our child care files to a fellow care leaver. With legal help, Graham took the council to court for negligence and sought access to his file as part of this process. He lost his initial case but kept trying. Eventually, the legal case ended up in the European Court of Human Rights in 1989. This time, he won. External Website

Radio & Podcast Adoption and moral obligation The Philosopher's Zone 2022 An interesting conversation on adoption as a 'moral duty' giving the number of children in the world (an estimated 16.2) who are orphans. Why the ongoing 'genetic preference' in families when so many other children need a home, is the question being explored. External Website

Films/Videos Fugitive Pieces 2007 Fugitive Pieces is based on the 1996 award winning novel by Canadian writer, Anne Michaels (b. 1958). The film tells the story of Jakob who is 7 when he is orphaned in Poland during WWII. He hides in the forests and is rescued by a Greek archeologist who spirits him away to Greece and safety. Fugitive Pieces was produced by Robert Lantos and directed by Jeremy Podeswa. It premiered as the opening film for the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Goodbye, Mummy Darling Susan Tickner 2003 This is the story of Susan's journey from foster care in England to being shipped out to Australia when she was nine. External Website

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