Interview: Children of the care system search for their true identities

WHEN Anne Hunter was taken into care at the age of 12 no-one even asked about her cultural heritage.

“The minute you go into care you lose your identity,” says Anne.

Now 60, Anne, from Barnsley, still finds it difficult to talk about just what effect going into care and being separated from the mother she loved had on her.

“I’ve tried to keep hold of the bits that I can but there is a huge gaping hole,” she says.

Anne’s mother was Anglo-Burmese and brought up in an orphanage in Calcutta. As a result Anne and her sister had a different upbringing to their friends.

“We ate with our fingers and would sit on the floor to have meals,” she explains. “When I was taken into the children’s home no-one took any of that into account. We were just a number to be processed and labelled.”

Despite this Anne went on to become a social worker and to help increase the understanding of the needs of children in care.

Her story is one of many highlighted in a new exhibition in Leeds. Until now, the experiences of children in care and their loss of cultural heritage have seldom been explored. The exhibition, and a new play which accompanies it, are set to change that.

Where’s Your Mama Gone? is inspired by Richard McCann’s novel Just a Boy.

Richard’s mother, Wilma McCann, was Yorkshire Ripper Peter Sutcliffe’s first recorded murder victim in 1975 – when Richard was five years old.

Where’s Your Mama Gone? is the story of two children whose lives are turned upside-down after their mother is murdered by Yorkshire serial killer Paul Sutton in 1970s’ Leeds. Stephen and Carol Connor are placed in a children’s home and separated from their other siblings.

In an attempt to champion their mother’s memory, they battle to retain their identity and hold on to their past. One of the play’s central themes is the loss of heritage and cultural identity that the children experience.

This theme of loss is explored in depth in the Carriageworks exhibition that accompanies the play. The exhibition, made possible with a £44,200 grant from the Heritage Lottery Fund under the Your Heritage programme, draws upon real-life experiences of childhoods spent wholly or partly in care.

Following an appeal earlier this year, a large number of volunteers from across the region came forward to share their accounts of how a childhood in institutional care impacted – positively or negatively – on ethnic, cultural, religious and genetic heritage, with trained social work students from Leeds Metropolitan University.

The project was co-ordinated by Brian Daniels together with Professor Nick Frost, Professor of Social Work at Leeds Metropolitan University and Bea Campbell, the social commentator, broadcaster and journalist.

Brian Daniels explains: “Where’s Your Mama Gone? covers complex themes that are seldom highlighted, and the stories of those who have come forward to take part in the exhibition give greater context to the project’s central theme of heritage loss.

“When a child is moved from his or her birth family and cultural background, it can come at a severe cost to their understanding of who they are as they grow up. I hope that the play will prove a thought-provoking and entertaining combination, highlighting the issues some “looked-after children” face in future life and generating debate.” One of those to come forward was Anne, who was interested in studying for a PhD on a similar subject.

Anne’s father died when she was 10, and when her sister was 15 she became pregnant.

“Mum tried to do her best by us, but she was brought up in a orphanage in Calcutta and she was struggling with her own cultural identity. It was like history repeating itself.”

When the family moved to London, things spiralled for Anne.

“I got involved with a group of people who felt fit to use and abuse me in a particular way,” she explains.

“On reflection it was sexual exploitation but as a child you don’t understand what’s happening to you.” Anne was 12 years old. “I was out until all hours. My mum needed help. But she ended up shouting for help at Finsbury Park police station and the help they gave her was to put me into the care system.”

Anne believes that the treatment that followed was probably down to it being the ‘60s, but she doesn’t think that much has changed.

“Things haven’t changed so much for cultural identity of children and young people. They do try to understand more now, and children’s rights are taken much more seriously, but when you go into the care system it is still quite difficult.”

Anne was taken away from her mother – her only link with her cultural identity – for eight weeks while she was “processed”.

“Mum had worked for the Women’s Royal Army in India and she trusted the authorities but her trust was abused.

“They said I had no table manners because we would eat with our fingers. There was nothing there that I could link to. My mum was my cultural identity and when she wasn’t there I didn’t have anyone and so I would kick off.

“But they had no idea I came from a mixed heritage background. No-one ever took the time to find out. They didn’t understand.

“I was labelled as out-of-control and my behaviour was morally inappropriate.” Anne never received any counselling for the abuse. She was eventually put into a home run by nuns in Southampton and her mother came to live nearby.

“The nuns in those days had quite a bad reputation, but there was one sister in particular who actually tried to understand and help me. She saw me as a person rather than a label. They started from the premise that no child was born morally wrong.”

It was this nun who encouraged Anne to go to secretarial college and gave her back some self-esteem. When her care order ended Anne got married to Dave, who she’d met while she was in care. She had four children of her own and after one tragically died of cot death they moved to Yorkshire where Dave had family.

When Dave went for an interview at Barnsley Northern College they suggested that Anne should go back to studying to become a social worker. Despite having no confidence in her abilities and no qualifications, Anne agreed. Since then she has worked tirelessly to help children in care and increase understanding of their needs.

She has worked with the NSPCC and Barnados and is now planning to do a PhD into how children are treated in care.

She is also researching her Indian roots. “My mum died when I was 28 and I feel like I have always been searching for something. I may never find it but I am a true survivor.”