Hello, it's me, Lauren Laverne, and this is Desert Island Discs Postcards,
your hand-picked selection of unforgettable moments from some of our favourite castaways.
Today's castaway is the poet Lem Sisi.
When he spoke to Kirsty Young back in 2015,
he told her how he felt after his foster family turned their back on him as a teenager.
I was 12 years of age.
I was right on the edge of adolescence.
because I was the oldest one, they'd not had an adolescent before.
So when I was staying out late with my friends and or doing what adolescents do,
taking biscuits from the tin without saying please and thank you comes to mind.
There was all kinds of interpretations as to what was wrong with me.
And yeah, and they They basically put me into care,
into children's homes and said that they would never write to me or contact me again.
That was explicit in this deal.
I'm scarcely able to get a handle on where to begin on this.
What I will ask you is the response of the adults around you in the care home.
How did they explain what was happening to you?
Okay,
so I have just got my files after wanting them for 25 years So I'm starting to see what what was going on and it's clear in the files that the foster parents were They they they blamed me for Basically Let me say this calmly basically I was a threat within the family I was like a Trojan horse.
The devil was working inside of me.