Emotional roller coaster looking back at your childhood

We’ve been home a week now and the combination of jet lag and the throat infection I caught somewhere over the Atlantic has made things very odd, so I’ve had to put off raring to go for another week. However it has enabled me to catch up with news and events.
Lemn SissayLemn Sissay
Lemn Sissay

Before I had chance to read any news I got a ‘phone call asking me to comment on a story about how Preston police had handled a Facebook thread that had gone horribly wrong. My advice is that it doesn’t matter how tired, frustrated or grumpy we are feeling, if we’re on social media representing an organisation we must remember that and be aware of that organisation’s tone of voice so we do not bring it into disrepute.

We also have to learn to step back and listen rather than react. Often taking time to understand the other person’s point of view can result in the organisation gaining an ally.

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Some of the news I’m catching up on is the Labour Party leadership election and trending on Twitter as I write is the Jeremy Corbyn interview on the Andrew Marr show. He’s causing a real stir isn’t he?

What interests me is that his campaign is using social media so very well. He has 45,000 likes on his Facebook page and more than 72,000 followers on Twitter. If what I’m hearing is correct, despite being the oldest of the four candidates, he has won over our politically disengaged young people. Interesting times indeed.

A very touching item I’m following on Facebook at the moment is by Lancashire’s writer and poet Lemn Sissay. Lemn spent his first 18 years in local authority care and last week he shared that his files had arrived after Wigan Social Services finally tracked them down. He started asking for them in 2010 and had been told they were lost. This week he published a blog showing some of the notes made about him. Having spent a number of years working with young people in the care system I am aware that reading your childhood as seen through the eyes of professionals can be an emotional roller coaster.

Obviously growing up with no family and as the only black child in an all-white community has clearly influenced his work and if you want to know how that felt watch his TEDx talk A Child of the State on Youtube.

He is a lovely, lovely man and you can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.