Little Big Man

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His impact on leprosy was a major one. His many official roles in leprosy committees and organisations afforded him a platform to advocate for scientific research on leprosy and for high standards of patient care. His bibliography includes over 500 scientific publications, mainly on leprosy, as well as many books and pamphlets. He died at home on World Leprosy Day, 29 January 1986, survived by his wife, Mali, and their three sons, Derek, Alastair, and Christopher. Mali Browne also died on World Leprosy Day in 2006. Eventually by the age of 23, Stanley decided to turn his life around. After facing addiction, he was introduced to recovery through a friend at a point where he wanted to end his life. He also ended up receiving a lot of therapy and counselling, and when he finally got better he decided to pursue another path.

Gibson, Mary E. “Browne, Stanley George (1907–1986).” In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by HCG Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online (accessed September 13, 2006). Every one of us has a different story,” says Sissay, beaming around the room in a shirt that is playing catch-up with the sun. Johanan Walker enthusiastically nods. “We usually get the narrative told about us so it’s nice to tell it ourselves,” she says. She was taken into a mother and baby unit as a 12-year-old mum, and had to fight to keep her daughter. Her experience of finding herself homeless and powerless after leaving care inspired her to start a campaign, calling4gr8ness.org to support young care leavers in the same predicament. In between my procrastination, I fed myself on a diet of autobiographies, to not only build up the courage to finish mine, but also to understand the different styles of writing a memoir and the deliverance. I educated myself by reading these memoirs and the art of writing them and still regularly read autobiographies to this day. How long did it take you to complete your first book from the first idea to release?

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Browne's success at Yalisombo became internationally known, and the eminent leprologist Robert Cochrane, while visiting the Congo, encouraged Browne to leave behind his interest in general tropical medicine and focus entirely on leprosy studies. From birth he knew nothing but a home filled with love and the vibrancy of a Caribbean culture, but this changed when his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia.

My care experience was both traumatic and enlightening,” says Johanan Walker, who went into care in east London after she had a baby at 12. “I was challenged with a lot of preconceived ideas and biases by the adults I was around, about whether I could be a mum and make it through against all odds.” Walker managed to hold on to her child and was later able to focus on education, “which saved me,” she says. Now she is a lived experience consultant and the co-founder of calling4gr8ness.org, supporting care-experienced young adults in the creative industries. Sophie Willan To embrace the warrior and the humility side of ourselves that is within us all. Learning to love you for who are and not what others perception of you is or what they may want you to be. Lucy Sheen was one of 106 Hong Kong Chinese foundlings who were adopted by white British families in the 1950s and 60s. “Where I grew up, in a very white conservative area, there weren’t any other people who looked like me for the best part of 16 years,” she says. Sheen has made a documentary about her experience, a powerful study of cultural displacement and linguistic disenfranchisement called Abandoned Adopted Here. Paul Cookson An intelligent and sensitive child, Stanley descends into a life of crime and drug abuse. During his time spent in various young offender’s institutions and prisons he battles with addiction and slowly begins to turn his life around. I hope to move, touch, and inspire my readers through sharing my story as a testament that our past doesn’t define who we are and that change is achievable, regardless of our circumstances and the cards we have been dealt in life. Above all else, it takes time to heal, and we are not alone. I hope readers will be able to see themselves in some form or another through my own story and identify with that common human trait of just wanting to be loved. Although this can be seen as being a bit of a cliche, but it’s the truth we can all relate to and keeps coming up time and time again. On some level I guess we all just want to be free. Free from self critique and self doubt.

Reece Pantry

Complex and darkly satisfying, One Under proves that when drama moves beyond formula, anything can happen.' Spy In The Stalls Actor Stanley J. Browne sheds vital light on addiction, mental illness, and our underfunded care system in this powerful true-to-life story about male coming-of-age. Axa Hynes, right, with her foster sister Michelle Brown, also featured in the Foundling Museum photograph. Axa Hynes What I learnt about myself is the realisation that I have actually survived my trauma. I already knew how far I had come, but I almost belittled the trauma over the years because of my successes. Writing this memoir emphasised why I felt compelled to share my story with others in the first place.

I’m hopeful that attitudes towards those in care are changing,” says Meera Mistry, who was in foster care in London for most of her teens. “The care-experienced movement is shaping some of the thinking – that people in care are talented and have so much potential. We can go on to do better if we’re just given the same life chances as other people. I am mightily proud of being care-experienced as it’s made me who I am today. Although it’s going to take time to shift the stigma and change the system, I believe it will happen.” Bruce Oldfield OBEAs Vessels, Browne exhibits an unhinged personality that fits with his internal struggle to simultaneously love and hate his ex-wife, the mother that took his children from him when he simply aspired to change the world into something worth growing up in. That’s one opinion anyway. It isn’t difficult to empathise with the alternative – Grace’s plight, wife of a radical that kills for his beliefs, manifest in the carnal need to protect her children from their monstrous father. Both sides of the story are credibly acted out on stage, a power play where each actor jostles for the position of moral superiority. The individuals are indeed committed; Grace and supportive crutch Easley at times forget that they are held at gun point, such is their moral obligation to exert their supremacist views. Browne trained at the Anna Scher Theatre in North London, going on to win the sole scholarship for men at Mountview Acting Academy in classical theatre. He has performed Shakespeare’s "Othello", and also appears in film, TV and theatre. He is also a singer songwriter and has recorded an album. I am the Race and Diversity Correspondent for MyLondon, and I enjoy writing about stories to do with ethnic minorities. When he was four, Kriss Akabusi’s parents returned to Nigeria, leaving him alone in the UK with his younger brother. They moved between several foster placements before entering a children’s home. Akabusi joined the British army aged 16 and later embarked on a glittering athletics career as a sprinter and hurdler. Ben Ashcroft FRSA

Stanley J. Browne is an actor, and he has been an actor all his life. Born to a Jamaican mother in a London suburb, he began rehearsing for the role of survivor from an early age. From birth he knew nothing but a home filled with love and the vibrancy of a Caribbean culture, but this changes when his mother is diagnosed with schizophrenia. It was only when he was sent to a young offender’s institution that he slowly began to turn his life around.When Luis De Abreu was nine, he travelled from Madeira to join his mother in Jersey, where she’d been working for several years. Soon afterwards she died of cancer and De Abreu ended up, after several foster placements, living in the notorious Jersey children’s home Haut de la Garenne. He was badly bullied at school and his education “suffered terribly”, but he “soldiered on” and enrolled at Bird College aged 22 to study dance and musical theatre. He is now Bird’s principal and artistic director. Martin Figura My own interests and experiences also weave into my stories so that readers can get an insight into my South Asian heritage, as you can see from this story about Karak Chai which I'm ever so passionate about! It was amazing to be seen,” says Olumide Popoola about some of the social workers who helped her through care in Germany. She lived with a foster family from 12 to 14 and then spent a couple of years in a children’s home. Both places recognised her writing talent and helped her get work published. Now Popoola is a novelist and an associate lecturer at Central Saint Martins in London. “I always feel these two years [at the children’s home] made it possible for me to be who I am today.” Janet Lee