Eight Weeks

Lola Young has been an actress, an academic, an activist and a crossbench peer. But from the age of eight weeks to eighteen years, she was moved between countless foster care placements and children's homes. It would take many decades before she was able to make sense of her childhood.

In her poignant and inspiring memoir, she pieces together her own remarkable life story, using fragments of memory, her care records, and her imagination where parts of her story are missing. As she revisits her childhood in north London, she also provides glimpses into her life as a peer, activist, and campaigner - and tells the story of her attempts to reconnect with her roots in later adulthood.

Baroness Young's story is a vital part of contemporary Black British history, but is also a moving account of being a child in care, a black child in a white family, and the sense of disconnection that comes from living between cultures.