Poet relives troubled life during stage show
“IT’S the hardest thing I have ever done on stage in my career but it’s the greatest thing I have ever done as well.”
Manchester poet Lemn Sissay speaks matter-of-factly after a remarkable two-hour production of The Report in which he heard – for the first time – a psychologist’s assessment of the damage he suffered across 18 years in the care system.
The document was used to calculate the six-figure compensation Wigan council handed him alongside an apology two years ago.
Neither the pay-out nor the apology have been made public until now.
A renowned poet and the chancellor of the University of Manchester, Lemn was born to an Ethiopian mother in Wigan 49 years ago.
He was taken into care aged two months but his young mother refused to sign the adoption papers because she wanted him back.
Regardless, the baby was given to foster carers and they looked after ‘Norman,’ as they called him, until the age of 12 when he became difficult.
His foster parents said the devil had got into him and he was returned to social services spending the next six years in a series of care homes, including the former Wood End Assessment Centre in Atherton where he was abused physically, emotionally and racially.
In adulthood, as a renowned poet, he fought for his social services file which would provide answers about his troubled upbringing and his roots in Ethiopia. He was told it had been lost until two years ago when Wigan council finally provided him with the documents as well as an apology and a payout.
He still can’t bring himself to read his file but he now knows the contents of the psychologist’s report which was used to calculate damages.
He knows the contents because he listened as they were read out for him by actress Julie Hesmondhalgh, who played the psychologist, across two extraordinary hours in front of a rapt audience of 350 people at the Royal Court in London on Monday evening.
The audience learned he started writing poetry for solace and that he tried in vain to reach out to relatives all across the world.
The psychologist diagnosed posttraumatic stress disorder, avoidant personality disorder and alcohol use disorder. Afterwards, Lemn told the M.E.N.: “I feel more comfortable on stage. I feel I’m in front of my family when I’m in front of an audience. I know it sounds bizarre. I wanted to read the psychologist’s report in a safe place emotionally, mentally and physically and to me that was on stage.
“This was a way of shining a light on a really dark place.”
A Wigan council spokeswoman said: “These incidents occurred more than 27 years ago and Wigan Council has come a long way since then.”