Historical novelists engage in research to ensure the authenticity of facts, and read as many related books, non-fiction and fiction, as possible. In my blogs I share the more fascinating fruits of my labours.
The name – Lemn Sissay is itself poetry, the whisper of a breeze through tall grasses, the light swish of a silk dress – yet, sadly, that was not the name he was called throughout his childhood. It was the rather more prosaic, Norman Greenwood.
To explain – in 1967 Yemarshet Sissay, Lemn’s mother, was a pregnant, unmarried, seventeen-year-old Ethiopian studying in England. In much of Europe and in Ethiopia, children born out of wedlock were stigmatised. and in Britain many such babies were wrested from their bewildered mothers and placed for adoption. Yemarshet refused to have her baby adopted, no doubt hoping that she would find a way to keep him. Then, because she had to return to Ethiopia urgently, Lemn was fostered, near Wigan, with a white couple, Mr and Mrs Greenwood. Lemn’s substitute forename was imposed on him by his one of his first social workers, Norman Goldthorpe. This might have been because Mr Goldthorpe was egotistical and callous. Then again, he might have believed giving Lemn an alternative English-sounding name would help him ‘fit in’, and minimize the risks of racist insults. Some 1950s immigrant parents did much the same; so, my Chinese friend known to us as Mary was really Nuan.
Lemn’s recollections are liberally supported by extracts from his Local Authority file. Of note are the comments of the social worker who scoffed at teachers’ suggestions that Lemn could thrive at Manchester Grammar School and apply to Oxford University. The worker evidently believed the primary school’s positive statements about Lemn were caused by an overcompensation for the fact he was/is black, concluding with the appallingly, “hopefully the staff attitude in his new school will be more realistic.’ There is no way I can excuse such attitudes. They are judgemental and unprofessional, not least because of the low expectations for a child in care; moreover, they reek of flagrant racism.
"None, none of this is your fault. None of it."
In Britain of the 1970s, little thought was given to the importance of children’s heritage, and yet Mr Mills talked to Lemn about Ethiopia and eventually tried to contact his mother. Although, the search was unsuccessful (until much later), Mr Mills shared a letter which she had written in 1968 indicating to Lemn that his mother very much wanted him. She had inquired, ‘How can I get Lemn back? He needs to be in his own country, with his own colour, his own people’. Sadly, her plea had been dismissed.
Throughout his teenage years, Lemn was moved from one institution to another. All proved distressing and damaging, and the final one, Wood End, was an undeserved, grotesque prison. Again, we see Norman Mills advocating for Lemn, and he is joined by a Consultant Child Psychiatrist, who wrote, ‘Lemn is a person with high ideals of honesty, trust etc who feels, with some reason, that many adults in his life have been less than honest with him.’ `Later an Educational Psychologist records ‘I applaud Lemn’s courage … He is better off making his own mistakes, given some degree of support, than having decisions made on his behalf.’ Sadly, they were battling against Authorities with oppressive attitudes towards black teenagers. As Norman Mills had no option but to drive him to Wood End, Lemn records he ‘didn’t want me in there.’ And he was right not to do so; its regime was grossly abusive. Sadly, as frequently illustrated in both the Spinningdales Series and Lemn’s memoir, too often front-line social workers have to choose not the best alternative but either the least worst, or the only one available.
• Lemn Sissay (2020) My Name is Why. London: Canongate Books
• Website: https://www.lemnsissay.com/lemn
• Twitter: @lemnsissay
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