Lemn Sissay: Foster care, belonging, and snake charming

0:00Hello, I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that sheds new light on difficult past. Today, I'm chatting to Lem Sisay. I wanted to get my files from the government so that I could at least have some context with my own childhood. Am I mad or did it happen? Because it is. The worst thing that anybody would want for their children is that they were left in a wilderness with no family member to acknowledge their existence from the time they were born, that they would be deprived of touch. It's emotional. Hiroshima is what happened to me and I was the only witness in that wilderness and I knew it and I wrote poems as witnesses.

0:46Lem is a BAFTA nominated award-winning writer and broadcaster. He's also the most beautiful poet and for the last decade he's composed a short four-line poem As Dawn Breaks Each Morning which he shares online. Recently they've been collated into a book Let the Light Pour In which is so beautiful. These poems are so life-affirming, they're so witty and they're so full of wonder but they're fuelled by a hardened resilience that Lems had to develop in dark times. He had an extraordinarily traumatic childhood which I'll let him tell you about shortly and which he details in his brilliant memoir My Name Is Why.

1:31He grew up in care with no one to call family and is now infinitely passionate about telling stories and taking action that exposes and rights the injustices in the care system. He's also, by the way, one of the funniest people I've ever met. From the moment that he walked through my front door, he had me cackling. He's just the best.

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2:59Right, here we go. this is the show.

3:25Oh, Lem, I'm so happy that you're here. I am such a mega fan of your writing. I've got a million and one things to ask you today. Fern, it's a pleasure to be here. I've listened to a few of the Happy Place podcasts. I'm going to listen to a lot more of them. I like what you do. Oh, thanks, Lem. That's so kind of you. I want to start with Let the Light Pour In, this beautiful book of quatrains, your four-line poems that you write every single morning. They're so beautiful. I just pick it up whenever I can and just read whatever one I turn to. I've got favourites as well. Can I read one of my favourites?

4:02Yeah, please. The moon tells the sky, the sky tells the sea, the sea tells the tide, and the tide tells me. Oh, it's gorgeous. And these are just, these come to you every morning. It might take minutes, it might take hours, but this is a daily practice for you. What does that daily practice bring you? um i think it i think it centers me in a way that maybe um meditation centers people although it's not meditation it's not that but it um prioritizes things in the morning so it allows me to get a little bit in touch with nature maybe a little in touch with how i'm feeling maybe i do it every day i put out four lines a four-line poem it rhymes on the second and the fourth line and then I put it out on my socials, Instagram, and not as much Instagram, actually, Twitter, Facebook, etc.

4:56And I make them up in the morning and I put them out and they might be crap. You know what I mean? You pick the best ones for the book. The best ones are in the book, absolutely. Absolutely, but writers constantly face the possibility that they're just not that good. Oh, it's the worst. And also, you get to a point where you think, I don't know if something's good or not. Like I've just finished writing. I've written a bunch of nonfiction, but I've just finished writing my first fiction. And I have now read it eight trillion times and I'm numb. I'm like, is it good? Is it shit? I have no idea.

5:32I think writers like you in that case are right on the front line facing the fact that you might not be that good. I know, it's horrible. Yeah, and that's why I think that we have, I think we are like, I think we are, writers are a lot stronger than people think, firstly. And we are constantly facing the fact that we might be ridiculed, you know. Oh, terrible. People don't think that, though. They think that, you know, they think that, I don't know what they think. They don't think writers are vulnerable. And actually, they are incredibly vulnerable. Artists really put themselves out there. Yeah.

6:13Yeah, sorry. Just any creativity, you know, there's huge vulnerability that goes hand in hand with it. But your poems, they've brought me so much joy. And I love what you say in the introduction that it can take seconds to read a poem, but a lifetime to understand one. When you revisit these particular poems, because I know they're not all quatrains, you've written some other beautiful poetry, but do they change meaning when you revisit them? yeah they can uh for change meaning like when you look back at a photograph that of you when you were a child and you'll have your family with you or whoever with you as you grow older you start to understand the what really was happening in that photograph maybe very different to when you first you know first had it taken and i think it's in fact it's so true that as you grow you look back at a photograph and you understand it more you understand what your mum was going through or your dad or or whomever and the whole photograph changes and you think my god I was I've lived with this photograph all my life and it's just making sense it's fascinating isn't it oh yes and the same with poetry and you say that you found poetry or you were led to poetry due to your upbringing going to church the rhetoric and the lyricism that took you to poetry I don't know I don't know I'm asked the question why did you start writing poetry why are you a poet and I think well the logic may be this it may be that I was at church maybe that my foster dad was an English teacher it may be but who really knows how do you know that you were going to be a broadcaster that you are you know who really knows you know you know we find our way somehow in the creative industry and we look for kind of logical building blocks that could say oh this is how we got to here or or what vehicle took you from a to b what fuel did you use and we're looking for exact exactness in what is not an exact industry creativity is really powerful you know it doesn't need um it doesn't need an excuse a direct excuse but it needs it does need it just need the impulse to do okay so we look for reasons for the impulse to do oh you do this writing lem because you were had a broken childhood or because you had a blah blah and actually in my experience creativity is around all the people all the time and it's there for us when we have the impulse so every creativity privacy's in everybody everywhere.

8:53Without a doubt. What a good point. Yeah, I think we do try and search for these reasons and there might just not be any. We just have the impulse. But I find it really fascinating with you specifically, knowing what you know about your childhood now and looking back on your foster parents, but also knowing what you know about your birth family and your roots how do you feel about nature versus nurture and what has an impact on who you are today and what's informed who you are today I have a play on at the Hammersmith lyric at the moment it's an adaptation of Franz Kafka's metamorphosis but there is a line in it where they question the central characters question whether nature nurtured this monster that's in the bedroom That's what happens in metamorphosis.

9:45Or whether nature nurtured the monster, or whether there was nurture of nature that made the monster. It's a wordplay on this. You've had children, and you will know. And I think this is all connected. I haven't got children, but I think it's all connected. I think you will look at one child, and you can see the making. I think you can look at the child and think, where did that come from? he's obviously she's obviously that that personality you know and you you know how does that make itself what what i'm what am i saying what i'm saying is that i was that kid i was the child who wakes up uh with his eyes wide open and who opens the curtains and thinks the world has been waiting for him to open them so it's the world will then go okay come on let's do this let's do this i was that kid i love that i was that kid and i i thought the sun came up for me and it's like hi son yeah let's go let's go meet the people at school yes let's go do this now you know you just turned up like that yeah i was i was that kid and i genuinely thought that that people everybody smiled like i was like this is so cool i can go into the corner shot and mrs jolly they were called jolly in the car mr and mrs jolly i love them they they uh i was the kid they would give an extra sweet to or you know they people stopped and uh and and and at school i that's just the way it was man i and i thought this was the way for everybody you know this is everybody's i didn't think it i didn't think i was i had more than anybody it was really important to me actually because people were important people were really important people were very very very important and to see them smile was very important to me somehow it lit something in me when I got the smile back and I you know so I just thought the world was a place of smiles I had a little school on a little hill with um stuff you know running tracks and church on Sunday and what have you.

12:01Life was a blast. Yeah. I mean, you write beautifully about your childhood, the good, the bad and the ugly in My Name Is Why, which I read in about two sittings. I couldn't put it down. So beautifully written. At times, utterly heartbreaking. Yeah, yeah. And to cut to the chase, you only got some of, well, quite a lot of this information, very recently 2015 was when you were privy to your birth certificate your records all of the documents from the social workers that was a 30-year fight for you to attain this information made radio 4 documentaries about it yeah there's a radio 4 documentary in 95 called child of the state made a brought a tv documentary finding my father and tried to get my files for that and I was in care for 18 years and so I've got 18 years of files that that that tell the story of my childhood which is normally the the proviso of family family is the is the um unreliable narrator it says you were this I know you were this you did that because of that you went there do you remember when we went there and you did that you can have a little argument whether you or not you did that did you go there anyway were you that this negotiation of memory is what families consistently do you know but you had lies coming from all angles because you had the care system lying to you but you also had at points your foster family lying to you telling you that your birth mum didn't want you so you had a lot of false information coming your way i don't mind life i think family does a good turn in life you know i think family family will set out the parameters of its experience and don't go outside those parameters stay within them i'm talking about family in general you know and it's like you know and a child may grow to then question those parameters and that's very dangerous territory they go through their teenage years etc etc but the idea of the story of the family is kind of central to who we are to the point that it becomes invisible to us um and i didn't have that i i left care at 18 and i didn't have the the family to hold any memory any brothers or sisters or aunts and uncles i grew up with after leaving care i had people saying to me yeah but i know it's tough but just you know get your head down and and that all works but every time I had any success in any way it became apparent to me that I had no one I had no family no mother sisters brothers aunts uncles cousins great granddads not one single one to hold a memory of me in mind that's that affects me to this day so I wanted to get my files from the government so that I could at least have some context with my own childhood am i mad or did it happen because it is the worst thing that anybody would want for their children that is that they were left in a wilderness with no family member to acknowledge their existence from the time they were born that that they would be deprived of touch.

15:22Emotional Hiroshima is what happened to me. And I was the only witness in that wilderness. And I knew it. I knew it then. And I wrote poems as witnesses. I am telling this story now because this story affects my everyday life now. this isn't uh this isn't a narrative that's built in some way to um it's just as you do interviews and i've done many you know you talk your story you know you find yourself finding similar ways to explain it and those similar ways of explaining solidify and they become unreal in their solidification and and actually the story like all stories is it's a very fluid and moving one every time my birthday comes up every time Christmas comes up every time I have a relationship every time a relationship breaks down you know the idea that you may that that wilderness is is waiting for you is a very real concept your children as they grow they will look back to how you taught them and they'll go oh no my mum always okay or I disagreed with my mum then but actually you know I'm 30 now and I actually agree or I disagreed with my mum then and I'm in therapy now because my disagreements actually and you must you can look at your child anybody can look at the child think oh you're going to be in therapy about this but I didn't do anything okay yeah and and and actually what happens at that point is that you just think you know what I've just got love to give and they're going to get my love and this is how it works this is how my love works and the child can get older and then they might be 60 years old themselves and they'll say but I was loved and they'll slowly understand everything that you did you know and they may struggle with it as well anything that any parent does well mine is the wilderness that's the place that I have that's the gift I was given um and I'm aware of that and I'm okay with that but that's what it is yeah I mean and now for the joyous podcast Happy Place no this is important shit Lem it's so important because it's a feeling that you know I can I can sit and listen to you talk so beautifully today and I can sit and read your book and feel that pain and empathise and but I don't know what it feels like and it's really important to talk about it because your story is again so specific and there'll be some people that might understand this feeling a lot better than I do but I think it's so important to talk about yeah the story starts with your Ethiopian mum giving birth to you and then the government stole you let's talk yeah yeah frankly base language about this they stole you and put you straight into a foster family just talk to us about how that happened and why that happened mum came here to study um she uh found herself pregnant yeah and she was sent from Newbold College in Bracknell, which is still there actually, to the north of England into a mother and baby home.

18:39You might know the stories of the mother and baby homes. They were featured in Steve Coogan's Philomena. Actually, that's when they first broke, I think, across culture. And in those mother and baby homes were baby farms where children were adopted um often told as they grew older that their mother didn't want them it's not true no i think that most mothers who have children if they give the child away to say that they didn't want them is a real travesty actually this is actually more about women than it is about the children that they had actually it's more about how a pregnant woman was seen as a threat to society, a kind of oestrogen terrorist who might explode at any minute.

19:27Yes. Oestrogen in the world! Good vision. Well, they literally locked the women up. They were with the nuns and the social worker that ran the homes and the social worker would ask them to sign the adoption papers while they were at their most vulnerable. You can tell I've said that before, can't you? But my mum came into that maelstrom of this very effective situation. And by the way, I believe in adoption and I believe in adopting parents and we need adopting parents out there. And I think that a child will always find your weakest spot. Money, relationships. A child will find that spot in you or in the dad, you know, a child will like go, press it.

20:16Yeah. Uh-oh. Uh-oh. You know what I mean? Yeah. And therefore, to adopt, I've said this before, but I want to say a child, like if you have a problem with your mum, a child will say to you, I love ganma. Ganma is good. And if you have a problem with money as well, your child will say, ganma gives me money. You don't give me money. Whatever your weak spot is, a child will find it. Whatever you think is the hidden bit of you that nobody else knows about your own development, a child will press that. but and they don't know they're doing that you know and that's the blessing so therefore to adopt is the greatest thing that a human being can do you know and to have a child as well i've got to say you know to be be the parents and to share yourself my stories didn't mean to be but it's selfish it's it's all me but one of the things about having a child is that you realize it's not all about you it's not all about your story and that's a real brilliant lesson to learn i I think it's the same with faith and religions, et cetera.

21:18It's like, oh, there's something bigger going on, you know. But my mum came into the home and she wouldn't sign the adoption papers to the social worker when he visited. She would not sign them. And she wanted me to be fostered for a short period of time. And the social worker gave me to foster parents and said, treat this as an adoption. He's yours forever. and you have to know that everybody in this story thinks they're doing the right thing for the baby okay it's really easy for us and me you know and it has been to be oh how dare they do this happened on our watch you know what i mean yeah this was our society our 1960s we're not talking 500 years ago here oh this is recent yeah and um you know we are responsible you know for we were part of that society anyway the social worker gave me to the foster parents and they they then i was two months old whatever they then taught me to call them mum and dad and said they'd be with me forever forever and ever and um and that was the deal they were my mum and dad i was very happy i was the boy that woke up with his eyes open thinking the world smiled until you got to 12 until i got to 12 years of age uh when they they decided that they would put me into children's homes into care and then they would never visit me and never did and and that was it and and then i spent the next five years from 12 to 17 and a half in four different children's homes the last one was like a prison for for children because you people will ask what did i do and i didn't do anything but that was a really difficult narrative so it's it's interesting that we we we we speak about trying to find threads i was the only through thread of this story right therefore i'm and and i'm somehow to blame and the the people around the children's home who lived in the town and the villages they thought we were all bad children so there must be something in it I must be the bad kid the foster parents talked about having the devil inside they were very very religious which is why they took me so that they took me and then the devil took me away so so so so this was the logic and then I was in care for a while and then and then I left at 18 and uh and and at 18 I realized I didn't know anybody for longer than a year because I'd been in four different children's homes, staff changed every four hours, kids came in and out and again I was the only witness.

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25:09It seems like that feeling that you had done something wrong started before 12. This was a feeling that crept in even when you were living with your foster mum and dad, that you kept thinking, well, I've definitely done something wrong here. How do you go over that? If that's so ingrained in who you are as a kid and then going from foster home to foster home, like you say, having done nothing wrong but ended up essentially in a prison, how do you not feel like that anymore? Yeah, it's all a bit of therapy. Yeah, it always helps. The prisons are full of people who've been in care from 18 to 25.

25:48there's a very high amount of young people who've been in care. Well, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when everybody in society uses terms like, if you're naughty, I'll put you in a children's home, to their own kids. They don't mean anything bad by it. But the idea that children in care are intrinsically bad, believe in that before you believe that, oh, they need care. Yeah. you know so yeah it's a prejudice but how do sorry how do i how do any of us get over like the pain that we've been through which has been exacted upon us quite often because of a kind of prejudice yeah okay so whether that's prejudice from the old to the young men to women to from one to the other racial prejudice prejudice against kids in care prejudice if you're disabled whatever i was under a sustained attack for 18 years okay a sustained attack i had my name changed i mean when i got my files it became really evident so sorry you're asking me the question how did i i uh get through therapy was very important to me and not as important as turning off my phone this might be a very important phone call you never know i don't care i should know better sorry um I I do a series of things I stopped drinking when I was um eight years ago that was very important to me yeah I've been in therapy since I was 32 and I'm I can kind of afford therapy which is good so the point is is that just no success that I've ever had I would always have this the wilderness moment of there is no family that i've got who can say from the new me as a child that can say well done them and i would often come back to that at various things um therapies really helped me uh that was really helped me yeah um i i think that my story is all of our stories are allow for us to build bridges to each other that's it that's all it is any anybody's story okay yeah so my story is not worse than anybody's story i know you could you could do a billion points of it you know searching for that narrative line right you can go well he doesn't have that and I do have that and he doesn't have that and I do have that but actually we can empathize with each other's story we can't know it yeah and we can connect through pain which I think is always the biggest surprise I always have assumed we connect through joy and love but actually a lot of time it's pain it's a really lovely way to connect to other people we have to watch out for that for connecting through pain sorry not not you I do because because my story is so it's so catastrophic that I don't bring it to the table I I see it as an opportunity to form bridges and have empathy for people so you know I can see I can see a mother might cry because a child's just cut the finger and it's the first time they've seen their own blood the child's blood I mean it won't be the first time but but actually to see it disappear running away from their child the life blood um that's a shock now oh my gosh or to hear that something's wrong with your child just to hear that the need to try to solve it it's life and death for the parent i'm guessing that that experience is is the same as any experience i've been through and if the experience i've been through which was horrific in my childhood stops me from empathizing with that person who's just seen their child cut or just cut themselves or just ended a relationship themselves or just suddenly if that if i'm like oh well my my wound is bigger my my if you you know because i swear for a lot of my adult life in the back of my head i mean now i'm say to myself oh god now i say to myself oh now they're dying now the family's come together for the deaths because people i know are dying and their families are coming together for the deaths when i was 20 i was like oh now they're marrying and the family are coming together for the marriages and then I have friends say I'm sick I'm going up my mum's sick I'm like oh now the mums mums and dads are dying so they're going to go back to the place that they always told me that they'd never go back to of course the you know that what I'm trying to say is that that's not a good voice you know because um and i i've really had that's that's been actually actually i think that's been my biggest struggle yeah it's like not not not feeling that people are oh you have a family and you and and now they're falling out with their mum and dad and they're telling me oh my mum's a pain in the ass and i'm like yeah that's that's what that's what family is there was no contract that said you wouldn't dislike your mother for a year yeah whatever just it wasn't in the deal it wasn't they didn't give that deal to you the fact is you've got something to be angry against and I haven't so so that voice that I've just shared with you which is real yeah is one that I've had to really work at most of all so it's not just that what I've been through what I've been through that's that's a given but what is my take on it how have I you know and families around you all the time so so navigating this world in with with my story is is quite tricky sometimes but it's tricky for all of us but I love I think it's very empowering to mention that you can change maybe not change the voice but you can have an awareness of that voice because we've all got one of those acerbic little narratives going around yeah we might not be able to completely eradicate it but we can take a step back have awareness and go oh it's that voice and this is probably not going to make me feel very good and that doesn't negate the hard work that it is to have that awareness because i think it takes a great amount of effort to just step back and go oh it's that voice let the light pour in yeah one poem in one poem in a year i am the bull in the china shop with all my strength and will as a storm smashed the teacups i stood still oh i fucking love that glim that's it though that's what this is you know that's one of the four line poems that you know i am a bull in the china shop and with all my strength and will as a storm smashed the teacups I stood still yes the witness yes and the person who's taking the blame that's life changing I think and I think we're all trying to do that in our own way if you can step back and see the chaos around you or the voice in your head or whatever it's life changing and it's probably a daily discipline I don't think it's one you just nail and you're like oh I do that now all the time it's every day it's every day The market's uncertain.

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34:36Do you know what was, I mean, there's so many moments in the book where I learned a ton and I was taken aback at, you know, how awful the care system was. And what I am ignorant to today is what the care system is like now. Is it better? Because, you know, certainly the last home you were in, I was horrified to read some of the stuff going on there. I probably shouldn't have been as horrified. I probably should have known a lot more about it, but it was extremely informative. How much better is the care system today? There's just been a care review happened by a man called Josh McAllister. It took one year to do.

35:14It's a brilliant review. and the care system is left wanting at the moment 80 percent of kids in care are fostered now about 20 percent are in children's homes frankly it's a mess right now so there's a lot of kids who are paying for it being a mess now now i've got to say there's going to be some people in fostering who are doing really well and that's that's as you would expect that's how it should be but there is a high percentage you are having a horrific time in care and um and uh and that's not that's not good so i'm not taking away from the ones who are the care system's working for them but it is worth knowing that uh there's a lot wrong with the care system at the moment and there's a lot of people fighting for the changes that are needed in the system so i don't I don't want to be a doomsayer, but it is better than it's ever been.

36:10But that doesn't mean anything to a kid. No. A kid will never go, well, it was bad in the 60s. Yeah, I'm all right. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Because it was bad in the 60s, it's better now. Yeah. There is no relative experience like that for a kid. No, no, no. Just as your children won't go, well, if I was a child in the 1960s, I couldn't do X, Y, and Z, but I can now. But I think that the internet is changing everything. There are a lot of witnesses. It's playing witness for a lot of young people. The book I brought for you is, for you actually, is by a woman called Camilla Batmangelo. I know, I've met her.

36:43Yeah, yeah. She's amazing. And it's called Kids and it's what she wrote. It's about her, it's her manifesto really. Yeah, I'd love to read that. It's for you. Thank you so much. Yeah, no problem. This is, it's a subject that I desperately want to learn about and need to learn about. And, you know, also looking at care leavers because I know that's something you're deeply passionate about and trying to help with. What can be done to help care leavers to integrate and have a good life? There's more happening for care leavers now than there's ever been. A care leaver is a person who's been in care of the state and then leaves at 18 to become an adult.

37:23So, yeah, care leavers need jobs and they need help as well. a lot of times therapeutic help and they need to feel that they have worth. And this comes through employment and it comes through education and it comes through housing and it comes through health. So a lot of the different departments of the corporate parent, as it's known in society. How do you feel about that term? It's a term that is quite cold, corporate parent, but its meaning is good. It means that a child who leaves the children's homes and becomes an adult needs care of all of the different departments, health, housing, work, etc., etc.

38:08And I think the NHS and companies are starting to get behind employing young people who've left the care system. And also there's a lot of access to education for care leavers as well. education is a good way of sort of transcending class you know going from one class to another yeah so there's a lot of there's a lot of good work going on at the moment yeah what if there are people listening now i'm certainly one of them who thinks well i'd like to help do something what can i what can i do i don't want to sit here just helplessly listening to you know improvements need to be made or care leavers need a bit of support what's a great great a great question if you're at a in a workplace there's a company called care leaver covenant who connect care leavers to big business but also small business so if you have a company and you're looking for interns then i would contact the care leaver covenant never heard of it yeah yeah how brilliant it was started by the uh it was actually started by the education department who contacted a guy called matthew who set up the care leaver covenant about five years ago it's just grown massively and it's about the organization understanding that this person may need a little bit more care and attention simple as that but actually the people who at least serves in society are the ones who work hardest and who when they do work work hardest and who will be the ones to come back years later and say thank you because what you did for me was pivotal you know so if you have a company out there contact the Care Leaver Covenant and see if there are you know young people in care who could work for you or with you as interns etc it's a beautiful initiative yeah it's great to hear you say this because I know I know the man who started it I know how it started I know the effect it's having and so yeah it's great to hear you and you'll see you can google Care Leaver Covenant you'll find find the detail that's just one initiative there are many others There's a brilliant organisation in Hackney called Big House Theatre that works with care leavers in theatre, and they're getting five-star reviews with every show.

40:16Five-star in all of the newspapers. They're doing incredibly well, and they work with disaffected. Disaffected. We have to watch our language, don't we? Challenging. Semantics. Yeah, challenging. A child is a very challenging child. All children are challenging. Yeah, yeah. Do you know what I mean? That's the nature of childhood. The nature of childhood is to challenge. Do you know what? That's one of the things that I think upset me most about reading your official paperwork was how the care system talked about you, that you were either problematic or struggling mentally or having challenging behaviour.

40:56But what do you expect? You know, a child like yourself, it's almost like reading about a caged animal, that there are all these rules and this system in place that you're just having to live through. No shit you're going to be experiencing different mental challenges and problems and acting out. What else are they expecting? I was almost sort of screaming at the book, like, what? That's why I wrote the book, because I wanted you to witness what I was going through. That's like, my book has done its job there, because I wanted people to see what was happening to me when I was in there over 18 years.

41:34And the only way to do it was to actually show the files. Because would you believe that? Would you believe that all those different people were saying those things about that boy over that amount of time? It's just unreal. Yes, which is why I did it. What came to mind then was I was going to say, oh, well, I was a naughty kid at times. I stole biscuits from the tin at my foster parents without saying please and thank you now they didn't know and I started smoking when I was 12 as well I was the first adolescent and they thought that the there was something really bad inside me they didn't have the experience of nope you were the oldest in the family so when they looked at me and they were like what the hell is going on you know a lot of parents have done that with their children they're like who are you when they go through their their teenage years and I you have to know that I had to work that out myself so that as I was going a teenager I didn't work that out I worked that out in my 20s and 30s when I I'd look back at my child I was like oh god I was the oldest child the adolescence of course they were and then and then I worked out oh my foster mum was a twin because I used to go and visit my foster mom's twin and then I realized the psychology of my foster mom because the twin was in an asylum so that means that my foster mom quite possibly felt guilt at being the survivor of the twin that I used to visit my auntie who used to sit rocking in a chair with and my foster mom would say come and say hello to your auntie I loved her you know and I felt like she recognized me etc and so a big smile from me you know um and I I and then I realized so my foster mom had and then I realized my foster mom used to talk about my auntie and say that my auntie had a picture up on my grandma's wall and that my why is her not picture on my grandma's wall and then I was like my grandma couldn't acknowledge my foster mum her daughter because her foster mum reminded her of her other daughter in the asylum wow and my foster mum felt great guilt about that so she fosters babies that's me that my adolescence challenged her validity to her own mother and her sister and then I thought my foster mum has a birthday her twin sister has exactly the same birthday so when my foster mum has a birthday she feels like she that was the day she took from her own sister so I got to understand my family understand their motivations understand her anger and then it all starts to fall into place and then i have because i've this is public i have people coming out of the woodwork to tell me stories woman finds me at an event and tells me your mum used to have dark days and we come around to the house and if she had dark days all the windows were closed and the curtains were closed and we had to not not be in the house and i was like of course my mum suffered depression and of course it was when she had babies yeah what would a baby remind her of having her own child postnatal depression is what she had and nobody was there for her and here's me this child just giving her love because she's my mum and and and she found love incredibly difficult to receive.

45:23So your child will find your weakest spot. Isn't it a mad thing when you start to see the adults who are around you as a kid, as humans? Yeah, yeah. Because as a kid, obviously, you just go, adult, they know what they're doing. And then you go, oh, maybe, like, whether it's parents, teachers, other relatives, you know, caregivers, whoever it is, that you go, oh, they're humans with a story. But I think it's also really, it's an incredible thing that you've got to that place of understanding their psychology and their backstory. Because, you know, you went through some very tricky shit. But also, I guess it alleviates for you a resentment that could very well be there.

46:04I had resentment all my life towards her. And by the way, I've watched people go through that process of understanding their parents more as well. you know i'm like yeah and i mean family is the place where you can thankfully be utterly selfish what about me yeah you didn't do it for me now it doesn't make sense that everything is about you but actually a family is a place where you can go no it is though and and therefore you can feel betrayed because it's not actually all about you and and that's one of the beautiful things about getting older and seeing seeing the people in your family as people uh it's it's therapy that stopping drinking as well that that actually stopped me resenting the family i think forgiveness was the moment where my resentment sort of like really fell away when i forgave i i was like when i forgave my foster mom she said at home she said she said i i i had a terrible time with my own mother and i said to her do you think i didn't know that do you think i've not spent in that wilderness that you gave me like all my life thinking about if it isn't me what is it because for the first part of my life i thought it was it had to be me um but uh yeah then she said she said oh but you were a naughty kid and i think i probably was but i was naughty in the most in a quite a charming way i know the kid that I was it's not who I am now but I I know I know that that kid um yeah what is it bitterness rots the vessel that carries it yeah you know it's in the book but it's not my it's not actually my my thing that I don't know whose it is but it's not mine but uh and I remember realizing that as well the book stops with me the book stops with me man it's me that's got to you know carry this and um and also that that your story doesn't alleviate he said crossing his arms his story It's really interesting I'm looking forward I'm looking forward To watching this back You're psychoanalysing yourself I'm so looking forward To watching this back Because I know Because you actually Do things as well You This Yes Yes I'm not going to move In fact I'm not going to say it out loud Because Because It's quite I was quite I was like Oh that's really interesting Because you get a real There's a whole different conversation I'm paranoid There's a whole different conversation Going Because this is lockdown The shot There's a whole conversation That you have and that I have, by the way.

48:34Yeah, a physical translation. And actually, I think that a person, you should get on somebody who reads body language because, yeah, exactly. Because you're in your happy place. And so you are relaxed. I am in this chat, Lim. I'm like, I don't even know what the fuck I'm doing. I'm in it. And that's the way you are. I'm living and breathing it. So your movements are actually, and I did watch one. I was like, that's really interesting. Not that I could interpret them. Oh, few. Do you know what I'd love to ask you? And I wonder what you would relate this to. But looking at your whole story. I say names differently, Katon.

49:15My name's Fern Katon. Well, you could be Lem or Lemen. Well, in Ethiopia, it's in Set Lemon. Yeah, sorry. What does belonging mean to you? Having spoken about this wilderness, having this understanding of your roots in Ethiopia, but your life growing up in the UK what does it mean to you what does it feel like um okay belonging is when all of your story becomes invisible to the power of the exact moment that you're in this is a conversation between us I'm trying to not give answers that I've given before trying to be in the present as much as I can so I can give the answers trying to watch for myself slipping into storyteller mode which which is which is trying to cast a spell trying not to be trying not to be this i'll give you an example snake charmer oh he's playing he's playing a snake charming this will look good on the visual podcast but not on spotify but i'm pretending that i'm playing in an oboe or something yeah and the snake come the snake comes out to the rhythm of the oboe right that's what it basically is feeling snake comes out right good network there by the way and then the snake comes up but what you have to watch for and a lot of performers have to watch for this not not yourself but performers on stage and poets and what have you is that there comes a point that you can be hypnotized by the snake that you think you're hypnotizing okay so you're you you're da da da da da and the snake's coming but it's hypnotizing you and you're not engaged it's your trick it's what you do okay and i see this in performers and people i'm like you're snake charming you're not present everybody's wowing the snake coming up and the music you're playing but this is you're not there you know so i think my sense of belonging if i can get to a sense of belonging is to be in the present and no tricks.

51:24What a very astute and beautiful answer. I love that. I wasn't expecting that either. I could quite literally talk to you for the next 12 months and I'd still have questions and things I want to ask you, but I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time with you, Lem, and just thank you for your beautiful writing that brings me so much joy and for inspiring me to write better and to actually get back into writing poetry for fun because I love writing poetry. Yes, that's the way to do it, man. What did they say? Dance as if nobody's watching, but write as if nobody's reading. Yes. All right? Write as if nobody's flipping reading, man.

52:03Beautiful, beautiful. Lem, thank you so much. Thank you, Firm Cotton. I'm enjoying your podcast. I'm proud to have been here on it and for you to have asked me on it. and thank you for what you said about my book when you put it out, which was very wonderful on Insta. Do you know what? Behind the scenes, for listeners, a lot of the time with guests, they're, let's just talk frankly about this, they're on a press run and they're like, do you want to speak to blah, blah? Yes, please. I was like, we need to get Lem on the podcast. How do we reach him? I'm going to do some Instagram stuff. We need to get his attention.

52:41I've been desperate to get you on so that was on this occasion we were like begging for you to come on and you said yes we're very glad thank you because I've stopped like doing stuff because I feel like a bit of a husk you know like telling your story you know and you can't I don't want to ever feel like that and I'm not you know I'm a poet by trade so you know we don't have as much press runs as we bite off the arms of anybody who actually wants to write about us. But in this case, because I'd seen what you're about and what happy places and everything, I thought, yeah, let's thank. So thank you for having me on.

53:23I really appreciate it. I want to give you this as well. I think this more so. Go on, what's this? She's got 500 ,000 followers on Instagram. She's young. She's in her mid to late 20s. And she's a poet. and she's awesome and this is her first book and this is not even a selling book. This is... Oh. And she is, yeah, it's out on the 22nd of February. This is about you being introduced to a poet that I think you're going to absolutely freaking, absolutely, she's on fire. Oh. From the first poem. Oh, I can't wait. It's called Poems. Len Penny. The first poem is called Honey. From the first poem. That's my daughter's name.

54:04Well, there's... I love things like that. Me too. I love things like that. She's absolutely facing on fire. Yeah. Oh, Lem, thank you so much. Lem! Oh, my gosh. That was just the biggest joy to spend time with you. I'm obsessed that he called me out on my little body language tics as well, which I'm still intrigued about. What does it say about me and my inner workings? Oh, I dread to think. It was the way that I touched my hair that he picked up on. You can always watch the podcast on the Happy Place YouTube channel as well if you want. You can see the whole thing. You can see the snake charming mime that he did, the sort of invisible instrument.

54:45It was a particular highlight of mine. So that book that Lem really kindly gave me at the end of the podcast was called Po-Yums by a poet called Len Penny. You can get a copy of that alongside Lem's brilliant book, Let the Light Pour In. And just because I'd like to say book a few more times, I'll let you know that I'd love it if you were part of the Happy Place Book Club. we're on Instagram at Happy Place Book Club and we chat about books what we're reading at the moment and we just get really nerdy about it I'd love you to join us okay until next time a huge thank you again to Lem to the producer Anushka Tate at Happy Place Studios and to you I love you

55:57We'll see you next time.

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