'Inspirational and riveting': Baroness Coussins reviews Lola Young's 'Eight Weeks'

Baroness Lola Young of Hornsey | Image courtesy of UK Parliament

Baroness Coussins

This memoir by my good friend and fellow crossbencher Lola Young is simultaneously an emotional, upsetting, inspiring, compulsive, enlightening and brilliantly written read. An account of her childhood up to the age of 28, from foster care and children’s homes through to her early acting career, Lola also weaves in insightful references to the connections with her later parliamentary and campaigning work on reform of the care system, ethical trading, racism and culture.

Driven by a visceral need to understand how and why her parents handed her over to a foster mother at the age of only eight weeks – condemning her to a childhood of feeling abandoned, unloved and unlovable – she chronicles the bureaucratic struggle to obtain the official records of her years in care from Islington council, then piece together what they revealed and how they matched up with what she remembered, had been told, or had imagined. Her bewilderment, frustration, anger, sadness and self-doubt scream through the pages. Yet all these negative emotions are trumped in the last analysis by determination, talent, perspective, humour, resilience and success.

The failings and flaws of the care system at the time are horribly exposed: the thoughtless or ignorant racialised or racist comments about her abilities, her appearance or her aspirations which pepper the notes in Lola’s file; the complete absence of any attempt to talk with her about the emotional and psychological impact of the death of Daisy, her first long-term foster mother, when Lola was only 14; the frightening prospect of the cliff-edge end of being in care the minute she turned 18. These are just some of the challenges which gnawed away inside Lola, affecting her mental health and self-esteem. Yet at the same time, she was positively aware of her own intellect and interests, devouring books, enjoying learning and forging friendships with fellow foster children and classmates which sustained her then and still flourish.

The failings and flaws of the care system at the time are horribly exposed

Nevertheless, Lola hoped her care files – to which she finally gained access after years (yes, years) of wrangling with the council about whether they even existed – would unravel the mystery of what lay behind her mother’s decision to place her in care. And the unknowns about the exact status of her parents’ relationship – or of their lives in Nigeria. 

This quest is so cleverly written, juxtaposing images of letters and file notes alongside accounts of Lola’s actual day-to-day lived experience, that I sometimes felt I was reading a fictional thriller. Would she or would she not find what she was looking for? What happened next? How could she overcome this obstacle or that disappointment? 

It was a sobering jolt to steady myself and remember that this was all a real-life story, happening to someone I know, who was the same age and school year as me, living in the same city and doing many of the same childhood and teenage activities, yet in a shockingly different context and frame of reference.

If I have one criticism of this amazing, brave and cathartic book, it is that it ends too soon, in 1979. We are given tasters of Lola’s subsequent career path and the development of her talents in policy and committee work, academia and the House of Lords. But I for one would like her to write Part Two – from 1979 to the present day – to chart in as much incisive, witty and inspiring detail as Eight Weeks the rest of her story as to how she got to where and what she is now: Baroness, professor, author, human rights champion and Gooner. 

Baroness Coussins is a Crossbench peer

Eight Weeks: Looking Back, Moving Forwards, Defying the Odds
by Lola Young
Published by Fig Tree on Thursday 28 November

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