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Autobiography/Memoir Daffodils - Audiobook Louise Beech 2022 Content warning: suicide 2019. Dawn. The River Humber. A misty February walk. Surprise early daffodils. A picture taken. Then forgotten. Because five hours later, my world shattered. My mother jumped off the Humber Bridge. Had those yellow flowers not delayed me, I might have been there. Could I have stopped her? In the aftermath of this violent act, I turned to my writing, to my beloved siblings, to our only uncle. I was forced to look at events that led to this suicide attempt. At relationships wrecked by alcoholism. At chronic depression. At our care records. At my childhood. At my mother. At buried trauma never fully explored before. At myself.... When I much later found the picture of those surprise daffodils, I knew it was time to write about that day. I began typing the story that inspired so many of my fictional characters, that shaped the testing things they endured. My own story. External Website

Actors Richard Burton ​ ​ Welsh actor Richard Burton (1925-1984), was in kinship care as a child and foster care as a teenager. Richard Burton was born the 12th of 13 children to Richard and Edith Jenkins. The family lived in a mining village, Pontrhydyfen, in the Afan Valley, South Wales. Edith Jenkins was 44 when she gave birth to her last child and died of puerperal fever shortly after. On the death of her mother, Cecilia Jenkins, or Cis as she was known, took the two-year-old Richard to live with her family in Port Talbot. Richard did well at school, graduating into high school at the age of 11. He also enjoyed playing sport, particularly cricket and rugby. He left school at 15 and worked in retail, but after 18 months of hating it, he went back to school. Philip Burton, a new teacher, became the boy’s mentor, encouraging him to act and stay at school. When Richard left home at 17, he moved in with Philip Burton. Noted for his mellifluous baritone voice, Burton established himself as a formidable Shakespearean actor in the 1950s, and he gave a memorable performance of Hamlet in 1964. He was called "the natural successor to Olivier" by critic and dramaturge Kenneth Tynan. An alcoholic, Burton's failure to live up to those expectations disappointed critics and colleagues and fuelled his legend as a great thespian wastrel. Burton was nominated for an Academy Award seven times, but never won an Oscar. He was a recipient of BAFTAs, Golden Globes, and Tony Awards for Best Actor. In the mid-1960s, Burton ascended into the ranks of the top box office stars. By the late 1960s, Burton was one of the highest-paid actors in the world, receiving fees of $1 million or more plus a share of the gross receipts. Burton remained closely associated in the public consciousness with his second wife, actress Elizabeth Taylor. The couple's turbulent relationship was rarely out of the news. External Website

Radio & Podcast Hamilton producer Jeffrey Seller - Broadway and me Jeffrey Seller 2021 An adoptee, in this interview with Richard Fidler, Jeffrey Sellers talks about growing up in Detroit where he was well loved and supported in his interest in musical theatre. After he moved to New York, Seller worked as a booking agent and also produced a number of successful musicals. Most recently he has produced Hamilton and taken that to Australia where 250,000 tickets were sold out before the first preview of the show. External Website

Television Shows Who Killed Sara ​ 2021 Who Killed Sara? is a Mexican thriller which revolves around Alex Guzman - who was originally convicted for the murder of his sister Sara - searching for the real culprit. The series features an orphan who is taken in by the wealthy Lazcano family and grows up to become the lackey of Mariana Lazcano. External Website

Television Shows The Dumping Ground ​ 2013 The Dumping Ground (also informally referred to as TDG) is a British children's television drama series that focuses on the lives and experiences of young people who live in a care home with their care workers in care, broadcast on CBBC since 4 January 2013. The series is a continuation of Tracy Beaker Returns and the first series, consisting of thirteen, thirty-minute episodes, was commissioned in early 2012. A External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Shadow child: a memoir of the stolen generation Rosalie Fraser 1998 Shadow child describes Rosalie Fraser's childhood experiences of separation from her parents while a State Ward in Western Australia and child abuse within a foster family. The story also documents Rosalie's search for her natural family following her marriage, including information obtained from official records. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Ten Doors Down: The story of an extraordinary adoption reunion Robert Tickner 2020 Robert Tickner had always known he was adopted, but had rarely felt much curiosity about his origins. Born in 1951, he had a happy childhood - raised by his loving adoptive parents, Bert and Gwen Tickner, in the small seaside town of Forster, New South Wales. He grew up to be a cheerful and confident young man with a fierce sense of social justice, and the desire and stamina to make political change. Serving in the Hawke and Keating governments, he held the portfolio of minister for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander affairs. During his time on the front bench, Robert's son was born, and it was his deep sense of connection to this child that moved him at last to turn his attention to the question of his own birth. Although he had some sense of the potentially life-changing course that lay ahead of him, he could not have anticipated learning of the exceptional nature of the woman who had brought him into the world, the deep scars that his forced adoption had left on her, and the astonishing series of coincidences that had already linked their lives. And this was only the first half of a story. External Website

Actors Harry H. Corbett ​ ​ Harry H. Corbett, OBE (28 February 1925 – 21 March 1982) was an English actor and comedian, who co-starred in the long-running BBC television sitcom Steptoe and Son alongside Wilfrid Brambell, which was broadcast from 1962–65 and 1970–74. Harry Corbett was born in Rangoon, Burma where his father was serving in the British Army. Harry was just 18 months old when his mother died and he was sent back to Britain to live with relatives. Corbett served during the World War II with the Royal Marines. He then began acting with Joan Littlewood’s Theatre Workshop in London. External Website

Television Shows Virgin River ​ 2021 Virgin River is an American romantic drama streaming television series, based on the Virgin River novels by Robyn Carr. In the first season there is a story of a baby found on the doorstep of the town doctor. The child's mother is found suffering from post-partum depression and elects to put her daughter into kinship care. External Website

Fiction featuring Care Experience Auntie Mame: An Irreverent Escapade Patrick Dennis 2010 Patrick Dennis' mother died in childbirth. When Patrick is 10, his father dies, having arranged first for Patrick to live with his paternal auntie Mame. External Website

Writers Sumner Locke Elliott ​ 1917-1991 Sumner Locke Elliott (17 October 1917 – 24 June 1991) was an Australian (later American) novelist and playwright. Soon after he was born, Sumner's mother died and he was taken to stay with his childless aunt, Lilian. Custody of the boy was then contested by another aunt, Jessie, granted by the Supreme Court of NSW in 1927. Custody reverted to Lillian on Jessie's death in 1929. Sumner Locke Elliot left Australia in 1948 to live in the United States. He became an American citizen in 1955 after he had established himself as a leading scriptwriter. He Elliot began writing novels during the 1960s. In Australia he won the 1963 Miles Franklin Award for Careful, He Might Hear You and in 1977 he received the Patrick White Award for his services to Australian Literature. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People Stanley: Africa's Greatest Explorer Tim Jeal et al. 2011 British explorer, journalist and politician, Henry Morton Stanley (1841-1904), was in kinship care, foster care and the workhouse as a child. Henry Morton Stanley was born John Rowlands. He never knew his father, who died shortly after he was born. He was abandoned by his mother, 18-year-old unmarried Elizabeth Parry, almost immediately on his birth and handed over to the care of his grandfather, Moses Parry, who lived in Denbigh, Wales. John was about 6 when his 84-year-old grandfather died in 1847. The boy was taken to live with another couple, Jenny and Richard Price, and his care paid for by 2 uncles. When the Prices decided the rate was too low, and the uncles declined to pay more or care for the child themselves, John Rowlands was transferred to the St Asaph Union Workhouse. External Website

Autobiography/Memoir Matthew Henson Matthew Henson 2001 This is the story of African American explorer Matthew Henson (1866-1955), who was orphaned as a young boy, then in kinship care for a while, and working as a cabin boy by the time he was 12. For more than 20 years, Henson accompanied Commander Robert Peary on expeditions to the Arctic. External Website

Television Shows Unforgiven ​ 2009 Unforgiven is a three-part British television drama series, written by Sally Wainwright and which follows Ruth Slater (Suranne Jones), a woman found guilty of murdering two police officers when she was a teenager. Upon release from prison, Ruth is determined to find her sister, who was adopted shortly after the incident. The series is set in the village of Boothtown, Halifax, Yorkshire in England. A film based on the series and starring Sandra Bullock as Ruth Slater was released in 2021. External Website

Biography of Care Experienced People The Berlin Shadow Jonathan Lichtenstein 2020 In 1939, Jonathan Lichtenstein’s father Hans escaped Nazi-occupied Berlin as a child refugee on the Kindertransport. Almost every member of his family died after Kristallnacht, and, arriving in England to make his way in the world alone, Hans turned his back on his German Jewish culture. As Hans enters old age, he and his son Jonathan set out to retrace his journey back to Berlin. Published to coincide with the eightieth anniversary, this is a highly compelling account of a father and son’s attempt to emerge from the shadows of history. External Website

Films/Videos The Thirteenth Tale ​ 2014 Biographer Margaret Lea (Olivia Colman) arrives at the country house of famous novelist Vida Winter (Vanessa Redgrave). She has been invited to stay there and help Vida write her biography before she dies of cancer. Margaret is hesitant, as Vida is known for telling a different story each time she is asked about her background in interviews, so she requests some verifiable information from public record. Vida reveals her birth name was Adeline March and the local newspapers wrote about a fire that burned down her family home when she was seventeen, of which she bears proof in the form of a key-shaped burn on her palm. Vida tells her the events leading up to the fire. She grew up at Angelfield, the decaying family estate, with her identical twin sister Emmeline. Their mother Isabelle was suffered abuse at the hands of her unhinged brother, Charlie, and eventually taken away to a mental asylum, so the girls were mostly left to their own devices, becoming unruly, anti-social and running wild. The only adult supervision they had came from the two servants, nicknamed "Missus" and "John-the-dig." Ambrose, a young man who is the hired help gets Emmaline pregnant. This leads to Adeline trying to kill the baby. Margaret works out there were three girls at Angelfield. Vida confirms this, revealing she wasn't Adeline, but presumably the daughter of Charlie, abandoned at the estate by her unknown mother. The real Adeline was dangerously violent and jealous of anyone who got Emmeline's attention. This means there three orphans at the house. Margaret reveals her story and admits that she herself had a twin who was fatally struck by a car as a child, a tragic accident for which Margaret has always blamed herself. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The history of Tom Jones Henry Fielding 2011 The history of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding; edited with explanatory notes by Thomas Keymer and Alice Wakely ; with an introduction by Thomas Keymer. The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling, often known simply as Tom Jones, is a comic novel by English playwright and novelist Henry Fielding. It is a Bildungsroman and a picaresque novel. It was first published on 28 February 1749 in London and is among the earliest English works to be classified as a novel. External Website

Artists Angel De Cora ​ ​ Angel De Cora (1871–1919) artist of the Winnebago people, forcibly taken from her family as a child by US authorities as part of a programme to assimilate Native American girls into white society. De Cora later became a Native American rights advocate. Also known by her American Indian Hinook-Mahiwi-Kalinaka (Fleecy Cloud Floating in Place), was born at the Winnebago Agency in Dakota County (now Thurston), Nebraska. Angel was kidnapped at a young age from the agency and sent to a school at the Hampton Agricultural and Industrial School in Hampton, Virginia. She described how: "A strange white man appeared on the reservation and asked her, through an interpreter, if she would like to ride on a steam car; with six other children, she decided to try it, and when the ride was ended she found herself in Hampton. 'It was three years later that she returned to her mother who had wept and mourned for her. External Website

Fiction by Care Experienced authors The Quiet You Carry Nikki Barthelmess 2019 Victoria Parker knew her dad's behavior toward her was a little unusual, but she convinced herself everything was fine—until she found herself locked out of the house at 3:00 a.m., surrounded by flashing police lights. Now, dumped into a crowded, chaotic foster home, Victoria has to tiptoe around her domineering foster mother, get through senior year at a new school, and somehow salvage her college dreams . . . all while keeping her past hidden. But some secrets won't stay buried—especially when unwanted memories make Victoria freeze up at random moments and nightmares disrupt her sleep. Even worse, she can't stop worrying about her stepsister Sarah, left behind with her father. All she wants is to move forward, but how do you focus on the future when the past won't leave you alone? External Website

Autobiography/Memoir The Autobiography of Bertrand Russell Bertrand Russell 2000 Bertrand Russell was born in 1872 and grew up in kinship care. He died in 1970. One of the most influential figures of the twentieth century, he transformed philosophy, was a Nobel Prize winner for Literature and was imprisoned several times as a result of his pacifism. His views on religion, education, sex, politics and many other topics, made him one of the most read and revered writers of the age. External Website