FOSTERING AND ME WITH LORRAINE PASCALE

I'm sitting on the sofa it's about 7.00pm  and I'm watching "Fostering and Me with Lorraine Pascale" on BBC2.

Lorraine is a model and now a TV chef, and seems amazingly at peace with herself.

Lorraine was taken into care at birth, fostered for 18 months, then adopted by a family that splintered. Lorraine stayed with the adopting mother even though the mother was declining fast, and Lorraine was taken back into fostering.

Just watched the bit where Lorraine hears one of her ex-foster mums tell her that she told Lorraine, who was aged about 8 that she, Lorraine didn't have problems, it was her mum who had problems, and how much it helped Lorraine to know it wasn't her fault.

Lorraine is tracing her roots. Blimey, most of us are interested in our ancestry, hence all the websites, but it's one thing finding out your uncle was a villain, it's another thing altogether to find out, aged forty-something about the pain in your own life. Lorraine said she couldn't remember anything much even from when she was seven and eight, I wonder if they block it out?

I'm watching and typing. Now Lorraine is reading for the first time, her own fostering notes. She's just read the notes where her mother considered throwing her under the wheels of a passing lorry. The notes said the mother tried to strangle Lorraine and hit her, and could only keep from hitting her by locking her in a bedroom. Lorraine is getting up from the chair and leaving the room, clearly in distress.

Now we're with Lorraine in the home of a foster carer talking about fostering.

Lorraine asks the foster mum:

"What's the hardest thing about being a foster carer?"

"You're constantly trying to build the elusive trust"

That's a good answer I think, I must remember that.

Lorraine asks a fostered chid:

"What do you remember about your first night in your foster home?"

"I don't remember much, I wasn't happy at all. But now I am. It's really nice to feel that warmth and that love"

Lorraine is talking about looked after children never thinking they are good enough.

Yet she herself has gone on, become successful and confident, and, one hopes, happy.

Brilliant programme, well done BBC and Lorraine Pascale!