FOSTERING AND GHOSTS

 Middle foster child is off out tonight.

Off to our local youth club.

This is HUGE.

Going on his own, meeting a bunch of mates there.

Came out of the blue, he appeared downstairs looking well kempt, whiffing of after-shave and the quiff moussed into a peak.

HUGE

Wait 'til I tell our Blue Sky social worker, she'll go;

"NOOOO! FANTAAASTIC! ANOTHER MILESTONE!"

And it is a milestone. 

You get milestones cropping up in fostering, it's important to register them alongside the challenges.

Without betraying his identity, the young man is at war with the ghosts of his former family. To be precise, the ghost of his late grandfather. What's more, he's beating the ghost.

It's a dynasty thing I've noticed often with children coming into care.

They have troubled home lives, but the troubles often began before the child's parents were born. The trouble begins with the parents' parents. 

In this case a grandfather called "Wullie".

The lad's name is something like "Cairngorm". That's not it; I'm respecting his privacy, but it gives you an idea of the millstone round his neck. His name is that of a hallowed nook of Scotland. Hallowed because grandfather Wullie claimed he hailed from  there. And Cairngorm's father - I'll call him Alan - tried everything he could to pay homage to his father Wullie, tried everything to placate Wullie's rage and anger. Even tried naming his son after the place Wullie claimed to worship as some sort of magical kingdom from which he was wrenched.

Our Blue Sky social worker and I gleaned Cairngorm's backstory gently over a period of months. His mum had often opened up to him.

Grandfather Wullie was an alcoholic. Jobless (unemployable) itinerant (a pioneer sofa-surfer), father of innumerable 'bairns'.

Violent. Imprisoned for attacks on women, including Cairngorm's grandmother, the mother of Alan. Alan knew Wullie, but had no clue that his father's behaviour was criminally wrong. Like so many youngsters, Alan assumed his father's atrocities were somehow the norm, and it fell to Alan to sooth his father's savage brow.

But Cairngorm's dad, Alan, ended up fighting Wullie, his own father. Regularly.

Then Alan started drinking, like Wullie.

Then he started meeting girls, who exasperated him just as Alan's mother exhasperated Wullie.

It seems some sort of pact between the Magistrates and the military got Wullie enlisted, but it didn't help much. Wullie got billeted south of the border and ended up remaining in England. He sowed his seed, Alan was born. Alan sowed his seed and Cairngorm was born to a young woman best described as limited. But Cairngorm loved his mum; loves her still.

Wullie dedicated himself to drinking and fighting and claiming to be a victim, which he probably was, but we can't go back that far...

Cairngorm's mother had a succession of failed relationships, with Alan often showing up demanding money, booze and somewhere to doss.

Eventually she went under and social services stepped in.

Cairngorm came to us shy and frightened, as if everything was his fault. He had no friends, no social life, no family…no nothing. A closed book. We fostered him, us and Blue Sky.

He goes out tonight starting on his way.

Where that way takes him is his choice and privilege, but I genuinely believe that our fostering system means that another child will turn his life around and be some kind of ok.

ps: I'm only reporting facts about "Cairngorm'; please don't misconstrue I'm somehow down on the Scots. Guess what; they have reprobates in England, well, everywhere come to it.

Hey, my paternal grandad was a Glaswegan and a more noble man you could never dream up. Love us Scots!