My Name Is Why. Lemn Sissay
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may lead to his mother.
Norman is learning to play the piano and he said to be an exceptionally bright boy. He is very much aware of his colour and often asks why he could not have been born to a white lady. He has asked if he will have to marry a “black lady”. Mr. & Mrs. Greenwood are very proud of Norman and expect a lot of him academically in the future.
11 December 1974
I was a questioner. In the Baptist Church, our church, we were taught to question why. The answer was often ‘Because we are sinners’. At school I was subject to all kinds of questions about my race, which I couldn’t answer. I brought all these questions home.
‘She left you . . . she didn’t want you . . . if I find her I will scratch her eyes out . . . how could she . . . ?’ My mum’s love was elevated by how much she hated my birth mother for leaving me. That’s all I knew. All I knew was that my birth mother, the woman who had my face and my blood, was from Africa and Africa was where poor people were.
April 1974
I’m seven.
Mr & Mrs Greenwood, realize that there will be many problems ahead with Norman, as well as a lot of happiness. Sometimes he gets very emotional about his colour, and when this happens he can be very aggressive. Norman is not usually aggressive he shouts but he does not fight.
Mr & Mrs Greenwood have come to terms with the fact that his personality is very different from their own and that of their children, he is naturally an extrovert, happy when he has an admiring crowd round him. He thrives on praise and affection, in fact he can not do without it, this is part of his heritage, and the Greenwoods acknowledge this. Norman has asked several times recently whether he is adopted, they have answered him honestly that he is not, they do not think he really understands what it means but that it is just something that he has heard talked about at school. This child has a very real need to belong. Mr & Mrs Greenwood get very concerned about Norman’s future, the only family he has known is theirs, and he loves them, and is loved very deeply in return.
CHAPTER 4
Raise me with sunrise
Bathe me in light
Wash all the shadows
That fell from the night
I developed a sense that there was something wrong with me around the time I began attending junior school. R.L. Hughes Infants was my first school. It was straight up at the top of Osborne Road. We’d normally walk with Mum when she could take us but later I reached the age when I could walk on my own with my brother.
I liked the exact curvature of the earth of the school grounds. The green, green grass went on for ever. And the football field and running track. The neat 1960s buildings. I preferred it to home; there was less static in the air.
Mr Graves was the headmaster. He entered the hall each morning and stood near the monkey bars with his arms behind his back. They said he was an officer in the army. The music teacher sat in front of the piano. Mr Graves gave a solemn nod. And the pianist would begin with the prelude while peering over her glasses and then we would sing the song we also sang occasionally at church:
All things bright and beautiful,
all creatures great and small.
All things wise and wonderful,
the Lord God made them all.
I looked at my headteacher in awe.
After the school holidays, Christopher will be starting at the same school and it will be interesting to see what happens because Norman does not like Christopher to be better at him at anything so this could possible spurt him on to effort or on the other hand he may give up if he feels that Christopher is beating him.
I hadn’t realised at any point that none of what I have told you so far is true. I wasn’t a happy child. I was a deceitful one. I was causing problems for everyone. It must be true. These are the words of Mr Graves from the social worker’s report of January 1976.
Spoke to Mr. Graves several times on the phone and eventually visited the school.
He felt that Norman’s successes were too many for Chris to cope with. Went on to talk about another placement for Norman – without any consideration of how the boy might feel. I put it to him that it was the only home the boy had known.
I told him that another placement was out of the question and went on to inform him of what I had discussed with the foster-parents themselves. We talked about specific incidents in the school when Norman’s behaviour had been inappropriately rewarded.
He is never going to learn to cope with disapproval if approval is all he is being exposed to. The boy is going to meet with negative attitudes being unreasonably displayed to him at some time or other and one wonders how he will cope with this when he is entirely unused to it.
Spoke to Norman’s class-teacher. It was obvious that the boy has a very special place in this school – staff, domestic staff give him preferential treatment. Norman has to experience more realistic handling and attitudes towards him have to undergo a change but not reject him.
Headmaster will keep in touch about both children.
Visit to foster home Norman seen.
I loved life. I was nine. My brother Christopher was eight. I loved school. I loved him. I showed my love for him by punching him. We had the same rivalry most brothers have. We fought with unbridled determination, the way brothers do. We wrestled. We sweated until one of us, invariably Christopher, would burst into tears. Catherine and David had no children when they took me. Christopher was their first-born but I was their first. I was the eldest. I loved my town. I loved my family. I loved the sibling rivalry. I loved the Market, the Flower Park, the Big Park, the books. The church. My friends.
The headteacher suggesting to the social worker that I be moved for the sake of Christopher couldn’t have happened in isolation – ‘Norman’s successes were too many’. How could a child’s successes be too many? The social worker said, ‘Norman doesn’t like Christopher beating him.’ Of course he doesn’t. He’s my brother. Something was at play. Something I didn’t understand. ‘Norman’s behaviour had been inappropriately rewarded. He is never going to learn to cope with disapproval if approval is all he is being exposed to.’ This inclines me to think my foster parents must have spoken to the headteacher prior to his speaking with the social worker, as there is no counter-narrative in the files.
All I can tell you is what my parents told me: my mum was a nurse, my dad a teacher. And my brother and sister were my brother and sister. This was our town. But I couldn’t help giving my brother a Chinese burn ’cause that’s what brothers do. Isn’t it?
CHAPTER 5
Smouldering embers
In the sky above
Anger is an expression
In search of love
28.7.75 I called to see Norman today, the family just having returned from their holiday in Scotland. Mrs. Greenwood was upset, it seems just this morning Norman repeated what he had been doing most mornings while on holiday. He is getting up in the early hours and eating sweet foods, particularly biscuits, he has eaten as many as two packets. Norman says he is sorry for his behaviour but cannot