How To Fail With Elizabeth Day - S6, BONUS EPISODE! How to Fail: Lemn Sissay

Episode Date: November 12, 2019

For this extra-special bonus episode, I'm delighted to welcome Lemn Sissay to the podcast. Lemn is a poet, author and broadcaster whose memoir, My Name Is Why, is one of the most moving I have ever read. In it, he writes about his childhood - the son of Ethiopian parents who was wrongly given up for adoption as a baby and fostered by a white, working-class family in Lancashire. At the age of 12, he was told by his adoptive family that they would be putting him in a children's home and would never contact him again. He spent the next five years in a succession of brutal institutions during which he had a mental breakdown. In these dark times, the light of his poetry began to form.It is astonishing, then, that Lemn is such a gloriously expansive interviewee. You know when people talk about good energy? Lemn has good energy by the bucketload. There is not a trace of bitterness in his demeanour, in spite of what he has been through, and he's unafraid to be vulnerable and honest, even though his early life was a succession of betrayals.He joins me to talk about his failure to belong to the family he spent his life searching for, his failure to marry or have children (Lemn is the first male guest to have chosen this as a failure, which in itself is pretty fascinating), why he gave up drinking and his failure to be the poet he wishes he could be. Along the way, we talk about the power of human resilience and what family really means. Oh, and his dislike of cauliflower.This is a deeply inspiring and humbling interview. You might want to have the tissues ready. *The How To Fail Live tour is almost over. SNIFF! There are limited tickets left for Belfast with Sinead Burke (14th November) and Gateshead (8th December). Dublin with Amy Huberman (15th November) has SOLD OUT! Thank you! These events are not recorded as podcasts so the only way to be there is to book tickets via www.faneproductions.com/howtofail* The Sunday Times Top 5 bestselling book of the podcast, How To Fail: Everything I've Ever Learned From Things Going Wrong by Elizabeth Day, is out now and is available here. To contact us, email [e-mail]* My Name Is Why by Lemn Sissay is out now, published by Canongate, and available to order here*This BONUS SPECIAL episode of How To Fail With Elizabeth Day is sponsored by Sceptre, publishers of The Scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. This is the complete Fleabag. Every word. Every side-eye. Every fox. Out now. Available from Waterstones, online, and all good bookshops. Social Media:Elizabeth Day @elizabdayLemn Sissay @lemnsissaySceptre Books @sceptrebooks        Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Let's go seize the night. That's the powerful backing of American Express. Visit amex.ca slash yamx. Benefits vary by card. Other conditions apply. This special bonus episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day is sponsored by Scepter, the publishers of Fleabag, the scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. This is the complete Fleabag.

Every word, every side eye, every fox. Now, everyone loves Fleabag, especially on this podcast. I mean, I've interviewed her twice. Winner of Emmys and BAFTAs galore, it's a cultural touchstone and one of the biggest TV phenomena of the decade. But alas, we know there will be no more. And this book is Fleabag's final perfect parting gift. Fleabag the Scriptures combines the complete scripts from series one and two plus never before seen stage directions, a music score by her sister Izzo and new writing from Phoebe herself, the last she'll do on the subject of Fleabag. Available in a beautifully produced hardback edition, Fleabag the Scriptures is a must-have

for Fleabag fans and the only Christmas gift for anyone you'd run through an airport for. Fleabag the Scriptures, the complete filming scripts from series one and two, plus new writing from Phoebe Waller-Bridge is out now. Available from Waterstones, online and all good bookshops. Thank you very much to SEPTA. Hello and welcome to How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, the podcast that celebrates the things that haven't gone right. This is a podcast about learning from our mistakes and understanding that why we fail ultimately makes us stronger, Because learning how to fail in life actually means learning how to succeed better. I'm your host, author and journalist Elizabeth Day,

and every week I'll be asking a new interviewee what they've learned from failure. It is hard to introduce Lem Sisay because any introduction feels hopelessly reductive. I can tell you that he is an author, broadcaster, and one of our most beloved poets. I can also tell you that he is Chancellor of the University of Manchester, the recipient of prestigious literary awards, and was the official poet for the 2012 Olympics. But underneath that story of success is another, deeper story of what it took for him to get there. His mother was an Ethiopian student who arrived in England to attend a Christian college in 1966. She was pregnant and unmarried. Shortly after her son was born in 1967, he was taken away from her

and placed with a foster family who adopted him against his birth mother's wishes. A social worker renamed him Norman and Sisay grew up in a white, working-class, deeply religious family in Lancashire. His foster parents went on to have three more children. Tensions mounted. At the age of 12, to his profound confusion, Cissé's foster family placed him in a children's home and said they would never contact him again. He would spend the next five years in a succession of brutal institutions during which he had a mental breakdown.

In these dark times, the light of his poetry began to form. His astonishing memoir of this period of his life, My Name is Why, was published this year. Each chapter is introduced by a short verse of poetry. The one at the beginning of chapter nine is my favourite. It reads, nine is my favourite. It reads, look what was sown by the stars at night across the fields. I am not defined by scars, but by the incredible ability to heal. Lem Sissay, welcome to How to Fail. Hiya, it's an honour to be here. It's such an honour to meet you and it's such an honour to quote that poetry in front of you because it has got me through some times ever since I've read it that you're not

defined by scars but by the incredible ability to heal. It's so what I'm about and what this podcast is about and it's so what you're about and your life is about and I wanted to start by asking you whether you feel that you were born with that resilience and that attitude or whether you cultivated it or maybe a mixture of both. I think that we are all born with that resilience and when we are forced into the situation that we have to reach for it then we do. I don't think I'm any more resilient than anybody else. Relative to my experience, I may seem more so, but I don't think so at all. In fact, I see people who suffer greatly and I would not be in the position that they're in.

I don't know whether I would cope to be well or to fight for myself in the position that they're in. I don't know whether I would cope to be well or to fight for myself in the position that they're in. Namely, people who have families that then go on to hurt them. I didn't have a family, but if I had a family and that was the family that was damaging me, I'm not sure I would have the resilience that I see in others. Let's talk about your family. I don't know if that's how you still think of them, your foster family. Well, they're the only family that I had. So I guess, I mean, I don't feel like

I've ever had a family. But, but it's quite complicated. Well, one of the most uncomplicated and also profoundly moving things about your book my name is why is what an ebullient little person you were as a child and you still are but i think that joyfulness in life comes out so beautifully in the pages and that idea that you felt that everyone was smiling that the world was a happy place, and then you realised that it was because you were smiling at the world. Yes. Would you describe Little Lem or Norman as he was then? Little Norman was a smiler.

My job when I entered into any room was to make everybody feel happy. Any way that I could do that, whether that was smiling at them, telling a joke, telling a story. I felt like I could draw people's happiness out. If somebody wasn't happy, I was kind of disturbed by it and I wanted to let them be OK. I think that happens with a lot of fostered and adopted children. But of me, I just felt like, I'm going to get this, I'll just do this thing.

Even if they're not looking at me, I'd be in the corner going, if I do this, that person will notice. I bet. You know, and I'd do it, whatever it was. Whatever it was. And I would look around and they would be there, they would be there. And I'd be like, look what I'm doing. What are you doing?

Oh, I'm building a house for you you know oh yeah it was very real and very wonderful thing because I would always win you know I would always you'd win them over I would always win yeah and you say that you think it's you think it's something that a lot of foster children can relate to is that because there's a sense of having to please people? Yes, yes. And having to make people feel you have a reason to be there. Possibly. I don't know. I just know how I was.

And I was the kid who wanted to shine his light. And it wasn't like attention-seeking. It really was not. I could not understand why anybody would think it was attention- it was just trying to make everybody feel good and then what I got from that was that they would then make me feel good so they would like pour this stuff onto me I got such a such a hit from it oh my gosh that was quite addictive do you still get a hit from it I I think I do. You and me both. Oh my gosh. Somebody compliments me and I'm like a cat to a radiator.

You know what I mean? My back is right on the ribs of that radiator going, thank you, thank you so much. You know, and long after they've gone, I'm still on the radiator going, oh, they said that. You can't see this this but Lem is doing the most brilliant impression of a cat rubbing against a radiator that I've ever seen but I and I don't depend on that though I don't think that I am defined by being liked I think

that's really important you know I can get a buzz off it and I can get very hurt when somebody tries to take me out with negative stuff. I really don't depend on that to be alive. Given this ebullient, loving little fellow that you were, I think so many of us will be so uncomprehending of what happened when you were 12, which is, I'm again, massively summarising what you've written with great beauty in your book. But it seemed to me that you were growing into an adolescent and you were doing a couple of things that adolescents do. You were taking biscuits from tins when you weren't meant to. And there was a tension with your foster parents who were deeply religious Baptists

who by now had three children of their own. Yes. And then sent you away. Yep. At 12 years of age, they sent me into children's homes and said that they would never speak to me or write to me or visit me, in fact. That wouldn't be so bad if they'd not said that they were my mum and dad forever and that they'd not taught me to say the words mum and dad to them that they'd not said to me that my own birth

mother didn't want me that they were my family if anybody could imagine just being left in a wilderness at 12 with every memory that you'd had before that taken away from you and all access to your memories closed and locked away from you it was a very emotionally violent thing that they did to a child but I went into children's homes then and my primary job was to make people smile and I could never have understand what they'd done to me. I thought they would come back one day or I couldn't understand what I'd done but I knew that I'd been bad because I believed that I must have deserved what they'd done to me, that I was somehow unworthy of their love. If you can imagine that smiling child just like looking for somebody to

make happy, you know, in a place where that wouldn't work. Everything you were built to be was not going to work here. You're not that relevant. In fact, you're trying to make people happy was an irritant to an institution. people happy was an irritant to an institution. The institutions got progressively worse, each one that you were sent to. And I wonder how scared you were. I don't know whether I was scared. It's a really good question, actually.

How scared was I? It's a really kind question to ask. I was aware of being in a place where people didn't care they said they cared was very different to the action of caring it's like somebody who says they love you and you know they don't it has quite a deep effect on you that because you think well this person's very close to me. They say they love me. I know they don't. Who are they? And also, who are you and what is love? And if somebody's lying to me about loving me, then what is my worth?

So I felt in many ways I was being taught how to feel worthless. And I was being taught that I was slowly becoming invisible because I wasn't seen. I would be punished if I did something wrong but I wouldn't be congratulated if I did something right. So for example the first thing that I wanted in the children's home was a hug and I didn't get hugged. I stopped being touched at 12. But if I did something wrong the police would be called or if I ran away the police would be called etc so I found myself in an institution that was based on whether I followed the rules but in so doing I was invisible it's like no you follow these rules but there is end game. There's no love at the end of that. There's no hug.

Without love, for a child to be told to follow any rules, it's like an emotional fascism. I wasn't scared. I was learning that I was in a trap. And the moment I realised that fully, the moment I was physically imprisoned, is when the click went off in my head when I was 17. I was like, I was right. These people do not know what they're doing.

They have no reason to imprison me. They're giving no reason to imprison me and they know that I have no family so nobody's going to come for me. So they can do anything they want to me, and now they're proving it. I was right all along. Something is fundamentally wrong with these people around me. I wasn't scared.

I was like, of course. How do you keep your love for the world in that context? Well, I knew that they were only looking after an idea of me, that they were only looking after an idea of me and that actually the freedom that I had was that they didn't care who I was. Therefore, I had to look at who I was and I remember thinking as a child, I haven't done anything wrong here.

What is all of this? They know that I've not done anything wrong. I'm not intrinsically bad. Yet the foster parents did this to me. The social services have done a series of things to me. But I'm not bad, so I can't relate to their idea of me. Those were the thoughts in my head. So I was like, if I can't relate to their idea of me,

then we're in two really different worlds. Their world is where they have to punish me and put rules out for me without any idea of what they're going to do with me throughout my life. And I know that I shouldn't be in here in the first place. So I need to be careful because there's nothing worse than somebody in an institution telling the institution that it's not fit for purpose because that's when it'll get you and at one point this tension between those two ideas gets to a point where you are walking barefoot yes around the streets and i found that one of the most profoundly poignant moments of your book that you were walking barefoot and no one stepped in to

ask if you were okay or to help or no one could see what was happening to you I mean they didn't know anything about anything man I went barefoot as a way of rebelling against them without hurting anybody but the truth is is that I was in care and I went barefoot and somebody should have sat me down and said, this is not going to happen. But because I had no family, there was actually nobody responsible for me enough for them to go, you need to look after yourself. Nobody told me to buy a flat. I had no examples of like, you know, family at base is a set of disputed memories between one group of people over a lifetime. And I had nobody to dispute the memory of me, had no photographs of me.

You know, family is a place of arguments and reconciliation. And I had nobody who cared enough to argue with me or to reconcile. There was nothing to reconcile. I was simply being held. Nobody knew my story fully at all. So I had to just hunker down. You know, I had a breakdown. Went barefoot.

You became the keeper of your own story. Yeah, I became my own witness. And I wrote poetry as a kind of witness to what I was seeing and going through and well this is turning out to be a very happy podcast today but yeah I had to fight for myself sorry that's very inarticulate no you're that's literally the one thing you never are okay before I shift on to happier notes I I want to ask you, because you write with such power and such fluid lyricism and words are so deeply important to you. What do you think now when you come across the word care? It's a one word oxymoron.

The language we use is really important in our institutions, and it's often aspirational. It doesn't describe what the institution is doing. It describes what the institution wants, aspired to do. Once the aspirations stop, then it becomes a false description of something that is clearly not there. Care in the community. Sure start.

If it was so sure, it would be there still. I don't even mind the words that we use, actually. I just want the action to be good. But the word care is a one-word oxymoron, in my case. In a lot of cases, care really foster care works definitely adoption works definitely kids in care in children's homes works definitely but that's not what I'm concerned with I'm concerned with the people it doesn't work for so when I first approached you to come on this podcast you wrote me a very funny message saying that initially you attempted to make your three failures.

One, the failure to enjoy cauliflower. Two, the failure to enjoy economy class. And three, the failure to stop losing things. Which made me laugh. I should have done those three. Let's do those three. And then I replied saying, have you ever tried cauliflower cheese? Because I think that that would change your mind. But you rightly responded, well, that's just a vehicle for cheese.

Cheese on anything, as we both know, just improves everything. Yeah. We can just go through the list. I like cake, but cheese and cake. Oh, my God. Brilliant. Okay. Cheese and cake.

Toast is quite dry cheese on toast cheese on dafnoir what are they called potatoes cheese on potatoes i mean on any level whether it's dafnoir or whether it's a jackie potato or whether it's mashed potato with the right cheese in it just not too much but just the right one i mean cheese a cracker is just a dry kind of boat a raft why would you eat that put cheese on it it just transforms and hard cracker soft cheese soft cracker hard cheese always works i made that up i came up with that it's poetry in food. Are you the kind of person who will go and eat at an Italian restaurant and you will ask for grated parmesan on the fish pasta? Because I am.

No, I don't actually. What I'll do is ask for a bed of grated parmesan and then the fish pasta as an extra on top of it. I like your style so much. Okay, so you don't like cauliflower and you lose things all the time. Actually, you know, the funny thing about that is that I don't lose things anymore. Since I stopped drinking, I used to drink. And when I drank, I'd just lose my keys, my bags, my just everything.

Stopped drinking and I stopped losing things. so I think when I said that to you it was kind of like it was kind of slightly false because I sort of don't lose things anymore like once every blue moon I've had my phone you know my phone like when I was drinking I would lose my phone on a weekly basis and I don't lose my phone anymore I don't lose my keys And I don't lose my phone anymore. I don't lose my keys anymore. I don't lose money anymore. I don't lose friends anymore. Why did you stop drinking? Was that part of the reason?

I think I had to stop drinking. I think I had to get a grip on it. I think I had drinking issues. It was one of the best things that's ever happened in my adult life, was stopping drinking. And how long ago was that? It's something like seven years ago now. And did you just stop?

I did just stop and I went to meetings and found a way to get back to myself. I think, for me, I drank a lot because, I don't know, I don't know, it had something to do with not being happy with myself, and I would sort of destroy what good I'd done. So I'd go out and do a brilliant gig, blah, blah, blah, and get absolutely trashed afterwards and say some terrible things to the organiser or, you know, or worse.

And I just found that negative things were happening with alcohol. So I stopped and started to get to know myself. Do you think you were angry? I mean, when you have a problem with drink, it will feed on any insecurity that you have. So what is it? Is it anger? Is it relationships? Is it family? Is it blah? Is it your story? You know, carrying the cross? Oh, my story. You get very drunk and get very involved in my story when drunk. Is it that you feel that you're the only one who's gone through this particular thing? You know, it's a self-pity, self-harm. I'm talking about myself, not anybody else, but Is it that you feel that you're the only one who's gone through this particular thing?

It's a self-pity, self-harm. I'm talking about myself, not anybody else. But it's kind of self-pity, self-harm. And I had to get a grip on that. The book stops with me in my life. Let's get on to your real failures, which are not cauliflower and airplane related. You said to me that you failed to maintain the family that you spent your life searching for. And I would love you to unpack that a bit

and tell me what you meant by that. It is unusual to be 18 years of age and be on the search to find your mother, your father, your sisters, your brothers, your aunts, your uncles, and for you to have no surrogate family and to have not had a family. So I didn't understand the rules of family. So when I eventually did find my family, and I found my mum when I was 21 years of age

and my mother's daughters and brothers when I was 32, that's 11 years of my own mum not telling me who my brothers and sisters are. I found everybody. I found my father's brothers. I found my father, who was a pilot for Ethiopian Airlines. He died in 1974. So I found his brothers and sisters all over America. I looked like their brother I found my mum when I found my mum at 21 years of age I looked like the last time she saw my father and I realised

that it wasn't my story it was her story I was called Norman for the first 15 years of my life and then I was told that my name's Lem Cisse and then I was given my mother's name and my birth certificate and letters from my mother pleading for me back to the social worker who'd named me after himself so at 18 when I left the children's homes it was my primary job to find

my family I found them all over the world but my mother was the first port of call, and she's the one who had the most trauma. And when I met her, I realised that I looked like the last time that she saw my father. And I realised that it wasn't my story, it was her story, and it was her trauma. And it was a trauma for her, so it wasn't the result of a happy relationship that she'd had. She was 21 years of age. And my father was asked to escort her to England on her first journey abroad. So he escorted her to Athens first. I think that's where I was conceived.

And then I think that she came alone from Athens to London. It wasn't a direct flight at that time. She came to England and she was pregnant. She didn't know it at the time. And I don't know the conditions of my conception. And she came to England and then she was sent to the north of England to go into a mother and baby home to have the baby. And that's when she'd kind of entered the Philomena story, you know, Steve Coogan's Philomena story, written by Martin Sixsmith and Steve. She came right into the middle of that. So the primary purpose of this mother and baby home that she'd been sent to from Berkshire to Wigan, the primary purpose was to wrest the child from her, get her to sign the adoption papers and make a clean cut of it all. And she wouldn't sign the adoption papers. And

the social worker gave me to foster parents, which she wanted. She wanted me fostered. And the social worker gave me to foster parents and said, treat this as an adoption. He's yours forever. His name is Norman. You can call him anything you want, but his name is Norman. She was 21 years of age. She was on the bridge between childhood and adulthood. She was in the north, north of England. And it would have been throughout winter. I was born on May the 21st. I know all of her footsteps, man. And I've met people who were in that mother and baby home since then, who said that they were in the bed next to her, who've told me about her. My primary purpose for being 18, leaving the children's homes is to find her, to find the story. So yeah, you know, and then she had to

kind of close that side of herself. She went back to Ethiopia because her father was dying. She tried to get me back. I know that because I was given the letter at 18 years of herself. She went back to Ethiopia because her father was dying. She tried to get me back. I know that because I was given the letter at 18 years of age. My social worker said, somebody did love you. He gave me a letter of my mother pleading for me back to a social worker whom she had asked to have me fostered to for a short period of time, whose name was Norman, and who'd named me after himself. So she couldn't get me back. She tried. She went back to Ethiopia. Her father died.

She was a single daughter. She then married the vice minister to finance under the emperor Haile Selassie. Then there was the revolution in 1973, and she had to flee the country while her children were in international schools in Paris and Belgium. I mean, her husband was jailed in Ethiopia from a very aristocratic family. So that was 1974. I found her in 1988.

She'd never been home. Her children were still studying. I just think it was an incredible shock for her. And also, I didn't understand the rules, part of the rules of family. I didn't understand how to part of the rules of family I didn't understand how to behave especially Ethiopian families it's a very proud culture and that generation of the 60s

they don't talk about their stuff in the way that we do we're very enlightened this podcast, How to Fail, etc the whole idea to a certain generation of how to fail why would you talk about how to fail, etc. Like the whole idea to a certain generation of how to fail, why would you talk about how to fail? You know, our parents and our parents' parents would be like, what? What is that? You know, and they, like my mother possibly, can find themselves with a kind of locked-in syndrome.

Well, we would say that, wouldn't we? You know, maybe it's not locked-in syndrome. Well, we would say that, wouldn't we? Maybe it's not locked-in syndrome. Maybe it's just that they've worked so hard, they've provided for their children, they can't afford to investigate what they've lost. And there it was, in full body, in front of her, saying what happened. So I became, I believe, a threat to my mum. And I understand that. Is your mum still alive? Your birth mum?

Yeah, she is. Yeah, she worked for the United Nations. She's stationed in New York. So your failure, as you described it, was to have the family that you'd been searching for. What kind of family, if if any do you think you have now I don't really have a family now I mean can you imagine like being a family and having me be part of the family having written about my story from the age of 18 as well so it's kind of really complicated because the family that I found, and I have met everybody, my uncles and aunts all over America. You know, my auntie was the head of gender studies at UMass. I've got an uncle who builds houses. His name's Samson, Daniel, Eskedet, Alamash, who's a

psychoanalyst in San Francisco. They're an incredibly big, strong family on my father's side. On my mother's side, I've got my sisters and brothers who, sister in Mali, who is an agronomic expert, who has a massive melon farm that she exports melons all over the world, employs people locally, you know, helps prop up the economy locally and stuff. Just incredible, an incredible family. And I've kind of messed it up. I kind of came in not realising that families are about secrets and are about a sort of much more tender way of, I just don't understand how it works.

Basically, I walked into the front room of my family and I said, right, I'm here now. Where's the will? Anybody got the will? Do you think I might be included in your will, ladies and gentlemen? I mean, I didn't do that. It doesn't matter. But I think that I had that sort of effect. In fact, it's quite the opposite. I've never been bothered about it. Well, do you think actually you went in and asked, I'm here to be loved? Where's my belonging?

Yeah, well, yes, possibly. That's possibly... In fact, that is exactly what the case is. Families already have lots of pain in them and lots of stuff, so... I'm not the victim here, I just want to say because it sounds quite terrible, but and it possibly is, but I'm good with it. Do you think belonging is important? And if you do, where do you feel that you belong? I belong all over the place. I mean, everywhere, You know, I go to Ethiopia in a month.

I'll belong in Ethiopia. I'm in London now. I belong here. I'm in Manchester. I belong in Manchester. I travel all over the world as a writer. I'll be in Australia in a couple of weeks. I don't know.

I don't have anything to compare it with. So the life I have is what it is. It feels unusual to other people, I think. But to me, it's not. I'm trying to actually articulate it. We're in the book, but also in my life, trying to say to people, things are not always as simple as they seem.

I'm outside of a sort of familial orbit that I hear on your podcast. You know, I hear people, Meera Sayal, you know, I hear people sort of speak of their family consistently in the negative and in the positive, you know, and I think that's what it is and that's what I don't have. So I'm consistently trying to find a narrative to be able to communicate what is a kind of strange kind of existence, really, which I'm quite used to, you know. I am used to not hearing from anybody whose family for Christmas or at birthdays.

I am used to coming home to an empty house and having nobody say, where have you been? I am used to not having the relative relativity in the way that most people have it. Even if you hate your family and you're like a success, regardless of what they did to you, et cetera, et cetera. It's still a relativity. And I really don't have or have ever had that. And you can only know how big that is when it's not there. But because I've not got it, I don't have anything to compare the situation I'm in with. Makes total sense. Many of our great artists talk about the necessity of still viewing the world through a childlike spectrum.

And in psychotherapy, there's this notion of the inner child and connecting with the inner child and making your peace with the inner child. I would just be really interested in your perspective on that. How do you feel about Norman and about your inner child and still seeing the world in that way? I don't know. I think, like a lot of people, I probably struggle with that a little bit. I don't feel like I'm any different. I don't, you know, I feel like I've always been lemse to say

it's just that other people have written things on top of me. I don't think I'm unkind to my inner child. No, I had it in a play, actually. I wrote in a play that something about beating up your inner child. No, I had it in a play, actually. I wrote in a play that something about beating up your inner child. I think I'm kind to myself and I'm kind to my inner child, possibly. I don't really know, to be honest. Therapy is a great thing. I'm like, I'm in therapy. I tell people it's been one of the, but again, another great thing that I did for myself. No lie, I wrote this book so that I could be kind to myself as a child. I could see him, and for the first time,

I have somebody in my childhood saying that I was just a good kid, and I was just a kid who liked Sean. And I didn't have that before. I would say it, but I would only half believe it without having anybody else to back me up but in the book it's proof that I was that kid because you got finally access to all of those files that the local authority had had which stated that you were this incredibly bright in all senses of the word child and I'm aware as we're speaking I've got a copy of your book beside me and it's got this beautiful picture of you I guess you'd be about

six or seven it's just beautiful picture this beautiful child like standing there so sort of proudly and just happy about the world and I find it very moving to look at. Somebody sent me that picture a year and a half ago and they said, you haven't got any pictures of you, have you? And we have. And it was a neighbour called Mark English. Mark English. Yeah, Mark English. What a symbolic name.

I never thought of that. Yeah, you're right. My gosh, yeah. But he was so kind and he gave me the photograph and his mum took it. Because I don't have pictures of me of when I was a child because I don't have the family, etc. So it comes down to practical things as well as emotional ones. Your second failure, I guess, is related to this, which is that you failed to marry. Yes.

And you failed to have children. Yes. And does that feel very much like your failure? And you failed to have children? Yes. And does that feel very much like your failure? No, yes. Because I reckon, like, looking back now, I'm 52,

looking back now, I'm like, you should just pop out babies. Forget it, Lem. You know, I mean, most people who have children, they don't know whether they can afford to have children. They don't know if they're going to be responsible parents. They don't know if they're emotionally ready, etc. But I made certain decisions. When I was 18, I said I would never have children until I found my family. And then it took between 18 and 34 before I'd found all my family. And I didn't. And I wonder now whether I should have. I didn't buy a house, a flat, a place.

You know, only just done that. I think I relegated a lot of responsibility to my story, which I wish I hadn't have done. But I'm kind of cool with how it is. It is what it is. And I actually really am kind of cool with how it is it is what it is and I actually really am kind of cool with how it all is it it is what it is but it's I do feel like it's yeah no I feel like it is my failure and I've not given myself this is all very me me me obviously there's another person involved if you have a child not always actually I've not

given myself what people tell me is the greatest gift you know that you can give to yourself which is a child whether that's a child by adoption or whether it's a child by birth it really does not matter but I'm kind of cool with that as well because I'm like if I'm the end of the line which my parents created then I don't think that's a bad thing and that's something I carried for years as well I don't carry it as much anymore I am what and who I am and I think it's all meant to be the way it is whatever that means if I am the end of that line considering what I know then that's not a bad thing you're talking to someone who's also failed to have children and i completely relate to what you're saying about it feeling like your failure people saying

to you that it's the greatest love you'll ever know and yet also being okay with it and i think you're absolutely right that you are honoring your existence by the mark that you're leaving with your poetry with your work with your plays with the fact that you've got an mbe i just think that that is a beautiful legacy and as permanent if not more so than children and hey we might never know the great love that parenthood brings, but actually what we do know is what it's like to live with that not knowing. And I do think very profoundly that the time that I've used in not having children, it has given me so much time to be able to create and to be able to do whatever it is that I've done.

And I do think it's my responsibility in not having children, because there are people who have children and they take up like 60% of their time and then they have this other 40% that they put to work. If I've got more time, I can do more things. And it's actually my responsibility as a human being to do as best as I can in those things. So whether it's how to fail, you know, which has been the gift for so many mothers and fathers and parents and their children, whether they're teenagers or whatever, that may not have been possible in a different scenario. So you give to the world and I give to the world. I do what I can do as best as I can. And I think if I'd have had children, those things may well not have happened. And I think that makes it a gift that we are giving to the world. And actually,

it's the gift that gives back to us. The podcast gives back to you. You know what I mean? My books and my plays, they give back to me as well. So it's a beautiful relationship with the world. And it's a gift. Because if there's one thing that I've learned about my family and finding them, it's that families are very selfish and can be more selfish than anybody else. I think that in not having children, you become more, really, it's counterintuitiveness, but you become more selfless.

Part of the failure to have children, you said, was related to your failure to get married. And I wonder whether having grown up in an environment where you were promised lifelong love and someone was saying it but the actions absolutely were counterintuitive to every fiber of that I wonder if you just don't trust those sort of relationships whether it takes you a long time to allow yourself to trust sorry I'm only laughing because Lem is kind of nodding and rolling his eyes in a way that suggests this might have resonance. Yeah, I think trust is probably the biggest, you know, sort of hurdle that I've had to get over. And I'm still not sure that I'm great at it. Like really fundamentally right on the baseline of me.

The relationship is the biggest challenge that a human being can have, I think. Well, so how can you trust it if someone's saying that they love you? And it's one of those things, it's like in the early days of a relationship, you're not going to be able to prove yourself through actions because you're only getting to know each other. So you can only prove yourself in a way through words.

Yes. And words in that context, weirdly for you, you can't possibly trust them because of how they've been manipulated and abused before. True. However, it is our responsibility to work through our stuff. So therapy, exercise, blah, I think is important. And I remember saying that I wouldn't get married until I'd found all of my family. But I didn't want to get married.

This is very real, OK? I didn't want to get married. And I wrote an article for The Times literary supplement for this when I was about 24. And I had this image of being at a wedding and, like, all of her family being on one side of the church. And then there just being these pews, like in a Baptist church. This is so overdramatic in 24-year-old. Baptist church. This is so overdramatic and 24 year old that I would stand there at the bottom of the church and there would just be this sort of tidal wave of blood, which hit each pew and sort of came towards the, towards where I was stood with my albeit shocked partner. But the

point is, is that nobody would be there from the family. So I could never deal with that. Are you single now? Sorry, you've just taken a sip of a well-judged sip of water yes I am yeah yeah are you in the market to be set up yes I am great okay this is a conversation for after the podcast I mean you're so eligible but you probably don't believe that about yourself I've lived a good life you're talking like you're 95 I know I know I know yeah your final failure is a I mean they're all big ones but this is I failed to become the poet I hope one day to be I know that I'm a better writer than I've become and I spent a lot of my adult life searching for my family and getting consumed by my story I've had no choice about that I feel if I had another life I'd be spending my time reading and pursuing a line of artistic inquiry of form outside of my own story.

Do you know what I mean? Yes. I feel really, you know, distracted by my own story. I'm happy, you know, things work out how they work out. I feel like I'm not the writer that I know I could have been and every now and again I'll write a poem or a piece of work and I can see in it how good I could have been so you're speaking in the past tense there but do you feel that you could still be as good as you want to be possibly It's so interesting that because I actually think all the greatest writers and artists have that feeling because otherwise they would have no drive to get better and to improve and to ceaselessly question themselves and the world.

I heard Sadie Jones and Philippa Perry on your very podcast, you know, speaking the same way, speaking of the same sort of insecurity or sense that they may be a better writer just around the corner. I think Sadie Jones's metaphor was, when I begin a novel, I'm going to build a cathedral and it ends up being a quite manageable garden shed. You know, it's beautiful.

One of my favourite quotes of all time. I always think of that. Garden sheds are great though. Not everyone can build a garden shed you know it's beautiful one of my favorite quotes of all time i always think of that garden sheds are great though no not everyone can build a garden shed look as a metaphor and to be able to build something out there in in the garden rather than a cathedral you know because a garden shed is a whole world you know it's a whole world. And that's why my memoir has poems at the beginning of every chapter. It's chapter in the verse, because I just clung on to the fact

that I may not be as good as I would like to be, but I'm a poet all the same. Well, I think you're phenomenal. And so do legions of other people. And so we think that you're the poet that you should be, and we're so grateful for it. It's interesting that you mentioned the structure of your book there, because you do start each chapter with a verse. And I think almost every chapter is also interspersed with these documents that you had a 30-something year battle to get from the local authority.

And it's very jolting, and I mean that in the best way, to go from your lyricism to this officialese. Yes. Which is actually talking about incredibly moving things, but in admin jargon. Yeah. Was that a conscious decision that you would jolt us out of our... Absolutely. I mean, that was what it was like to be a child in the care system.

So you are a child, your eyes are open, the world is opening up before you, you're learning brand new things, and somebody is writing in a report, behaviour, dysfunctional, maladjusted, you know, must move him here, move him there, etc., etc., you know. People were trying to diagnose me before I had any illness, which is very weird. I mean, institutions often need to give diagnosis

so that they can give themselves purpose, and that's what was happening with me in the care system. The evidence is there in the book. You have the files that say one thing, and you have the boy that is a boy. And you can see how the files manipulate the boy and kind of sneak themselves beneath his skin and into his head to try to convince him that he is, you know, worthless and intrinsically wrong, bad or what have you. and intrinsically wrong, bad or what have you. Having said all of that, your book is full of beauty and hope, as are you as a person, and it strikes me that you live without bitterness.

Yes, it's true. How have you managed that? Have you had to forgive? Yes, but, you know, I had an uncle when I was a kid and he'd say, punch me here, see if it hurts, and then we'd punch him in his stomach and then it wouldn't hurt him. And I think, like, I've been a bit like that. The capacity for human beings to be able to absorb pain is just on another level.

Jeez, if you think about the people who went through Auschwitz and then came away and built families, you know, people who've suffered great trauma and abuses, etc. Bitterness rots the vessel that carries it. And anger is an expression in the search for love. And I truly understood that if I was to be bitter, it would only rot away inside of me. And that anger wasn't something that I needed to cling on to but it was something that I needed at certain points in my life but if I was to cling on to it it would

punish me so there is another ninja way you know there is like another level that's available to all of us and I think that I'm that's where I am I think human beings are incredible and have the capacity to forgive the greatest wrongdoing and the capacity to make change and the capacity to also try to be kind to themselves work through this stuff you know let me just say if human beings are incredible you're one of the most incredible. And I cannot thank you enough for pouring out your soul and being such a beautiful poet and coming on How to Fail. Love How to Fail. This special bonus episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day is sponsored by Scepter, the publishers of Fleabag, the scriptures by Phoebe Waller-Bridge. This is the complete Fleabag. Every word, every side eye, every fox.

Now, everyone loves Fleabag, especially on this podcast. I mean, I've interviewed her twice. Winner of Emmys and BAFTAs galore, it's a cultural touchstone and one of the biggest TV phenomena of the decade. But alas, we know there will be no more. And this book is Fleabag's final perfect parting gift. Fleabag the Scriptures combines the complete scripts from series one and two, plus never-before-seen stage directions, a music score by her sister Izzo, and new writing from

Phoebe herself, the last she'll do on the subject of Fleabag. Available in a beautifully produced hardback edition, Fleabag The Scriptures is a must-have for Fleabag fans and the only Christmas gift for anyone you'd run through an airport for. Fleabag The Scriptures, the complete filming scripts from series one and two, plus new writing from Phoebe Waller-Bridge, is out now. Available from Waterstones, online, and all good bookshops. Thank you very much to SEPTA. If you enjoyed this episode of How to Fail with Elizabeth Day, I would so appreciate it if you could rate, review and subscribe. Apparently it helps other people know that we exist.