Honouring Frankie

Monday September 28 2020

Jackie Macadam meets Michaela Foster-Marsh, author and founder of a charity in memory of her late brother.

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“I know God brought the right people to me so Starchild could be born.”

Michaela Foster-Marsh is a musician, singer, songwriter and author. She is also the founder of a charity, Starchild, honouring the memory of her brother, Frankie.

“My dad, Bill Marsh, a minister, had been adopted and felt strongly it was something he wanted to do. My parents said they wanted a ‘hard to place child’, meaning a child who was perhaps older or had a disability. They already had my brother Stephen, who was eight years old at the time. I came along meanwhile and then, thirteen months later, they were offered a little black boy who was deemed ‘hard to place’ because of his colour.

“This was in 1967 during the height of the Civil Rights Movement in America. Until recently, I used to have to explain to people what it was like back then. However, since George Floyd was murdered and we have seen racism at its ugliest, people are starting to appreciate the stance my parents took in the late 1960s.”

From the beginning, Michaela and Frankie were always together.

“I believe my first memory was being side by side in a twin buggy. He used to be terrified to leave the house and would scream blue murder. His screams were scary, and when I was writing the book I got really upset writing about his fierce crying. I remember hugging him from very young.

“Mum told me she was often stopped in the street and asked why she had a black and a white child in a twin pram. It wasn’t so much racism but curiosity, but I think mum got tired of the attention having a black child brought. Mostly it was positive attention. People wanted to hug Frankie and give him sweeties and things. They had never seen a black child before and he was adorable! They would want to touch his hair and skin, just the way the kids in Uganda do with me now.”

Michaela’s total acceptance of her brother could sometimes mean she missed how being ‘different’ impacted on Frankie.

“I realised the colour difference and the impact on Frankie one day when we were about five years old in the bathtub together. Frankie asked mum if he scrubbed really hard, would he become white like me?

“It was so sad to think he was obviously well aware of the differences in skin colour by then and wanted to be white. My mum talked to him that day about being African and having different parents, and I think that set off my curiosity. I wanted to know who Frankie’s parents were. He however, was not so fascinated.

“When he was first asked if he wanted to know about his biological family we were about ten years old and he was defensive. As far as he was concerned, we were his family and he didn’t want to know anything about Africa either. I think, at that age, he was afraid he might get sent to a country he didn’t know or understand. He was born here and felt completely Scottish.

“As he got older, he became more curious but he didn’t want to hurt my parents by looking for his Ugandan family. He eventually asked my dad for the adoption papers, but he died before he got a chance to find out more about them.”

School brought its own problems for Frankie.

Michaela remembers: “Frankie was the only black kid in our school most of the time. On our first day at school, Frankie and I introduced ourselves to the teacher and our class as twins. We always told people that, even when we got older. People laughed at first but they grew to accept it.

“In primary school sometimes, Frankie would be teased by children jumping around acting like monkeys and they would ask him where his grass skirt and scary masks were. I used to get more upset than he did. We tended to ignore them but, if necessary, Frankie was good with his fists.

“He was very popular at school but when we got into secondary school he became a bit of a target for racial abuse, although mainly outside of our school setting. Frankie never went looking for trouble but it did sometimes find him. He learned how to box from my dad, who spent a bit of time in the boxing ring in his youth. He had friends who would also defend him if necessary. In one incident at a party someone wielded a knife at him because of his skin colour.

“Frankie was also arrested for crimes he didn’t commit because of the colour of his skin. He got pulled out of school a few times by the police, and I know he found it really embarrassing and difficult to deal with. Dad would have to go to the police station to try to get him out of there. The police would casually say, ‘Oh well, black people all look the same to us’.

“After school, Frankie went to Oxford and got a job at a hotel, and I went to college to study fashion design. I visited him for a few weeks in Oxford during the summer break and we had a great time. I got married and emigrated to Canada in 1990. Then Frankie left for London to work with Lloyds Bowmaker.

“He came back to Glasgow not long before he died, and was living in a small flat in Alison Street. I spent three weeks with him over Christmas 1993. We spent those weeks hanging out together every day. He thought I was fussing over him too much. Little did I know that six weeks later he would be gone.”

True to their twin bond, Michaela knew Frankie had died before she was told.

“He died in an accidental fire in his flat. I woke up with a strange feeling of someone being in the room with me. My husband was a firefighter and was on nightshift. I remember the neon alarm clock showing it was just after 1am. I felt someone touch me. I was scared. I hid under the covers and prayed hard that whoever was there wouldn’t hurt me.

“I must have eventually gone back to sleep. When my husband came home that morning and woke me up, I told him someone had been in the room and to check all the doors and windows. I was in a bit of a state and he quickly checked. He told me no one could have been in the house and thought I’d had a nightmare – until he got the call from my dad telling him that Frankie had died.

“Frankie had died around 6am. We were five hours behind in Canada. I have absolutely no doubt that Frankie came to me that night and his was the presence I felt in the room with me. I’ve had lots of signs to similar effect over the years which are also in the book. I know there is a continuous thread that connects us, even after death.”

Years later, after inheriting the family papers, Michaela was spurred on to find Frankie’s family in Uganda, as a way of helping him complete his story.

“I discovered that Frankie’s mother was called Janet Wevugira, and I managed to trace a copy of Frankie’s original birth certificate. It showed Janet was a Ugandan student who studied in Belfast in 1965. I travelled to Belfast but the trail went cold.

“Frustrated, I channelled my hunger for the truth into writing a fictional novel about a woman called Dembe who gives up a child for adoption in Scotland and returns to Uganda under the reign of the dictator Idi Amin.

“In 2009, I visited Canada to attend the ordination of a close friend. By chance, the priest’s cousin told me she had a friend in England who was a missionary in Uganda during Idi Amin’s reign. I ended up visiting her in Lincoln. By a remarkable coincidence that lady introduced me to a second missionary, who was the headteacher of Gayaza High School for girls – the very school into which I had placed my fictional heroine, in my novel.

“The missionary asked to see Frankie’s adoption papers – and to everyone’s astonishment she recognised the unusual surname, Wevugira, on the certificate. It turned out Frankie’s grandfather, Janet’s father, was the pastor of the school from 1950 to1960.

“After many postponed attempts, Rony Bridges, my partner and I finally set off to Uganda on a journey to research my fictional book – and in search of more information about Frankie’s birth mother. I managed to get an interview with the headteacher of Gayaza High School, only to find that Frankie’s mother, Janet, had attended the school where her father was pastor!

“A member of staff brought me a photo of Janet as student there. It was very emotional to finally see her. I had always wondered about her. She looked so like him I was in floods of tears.

“Sadly, Janet died just months before Frankie. I used to say perhaps his mother had died and wanted him back.

“Two hours later, I was sitting with Frankie’s blood brother, who not only looks like him but has the same name, Frank! Within days I was introduced to another brother, David, and by telephone to my third new brother, Paul, who lives in the United States.

“Getting to know them and another culture has been fascinating but not always easy. The connection is very real, as are the differences in our lives, but it’s been an incredible experience.

“At first, I was overwhelmed by the poverty I witnessed and wanted to help. On one school visit, the real shift came when I asked about a young boy who was very withdrawn and sat at the back of the class – he reminded me of myself at school. The teacher told me he was ‘just stupid’. I was angry and said, ‘How do you know if you put a paint brush in his hand he won’t be the greatest artist in Uganda, or with a guitar the greatest guitarist?’

“She replied that she didn’t have money for pencils, let alone paint brushes, and so she wasn’t going to get his hopes up. It was then that I started to seriously think about trying to give children the opportunity to learn the arts and get some vocational training.

“Arts heal, they promote understanding. Pupils from all backgrounds can find new ways to come together, new ways of expressing themselves and the world around them. The arts help development of language, social skills, communication, decision making, risk taking, and inventiveness.

“Artists can also be the ambassadors of a nation. In a developing country like Uganda that is so important. People remember the artists; the song, the poem, the picture, the dance, the play – these are the ambassadors for your country and should be invested in.

“If someone had told me I would find Frankie’s family in Uganda, set up Starchild, and we’d build a school in Uganda and I’d write this amazing story, I wouldn’t have believed it. But I went forward in faith.

“I no longer stress as much over being in control of everything. That doesn’t mean I sit back and just wait for things to happen. I work very hard. But sometimes I get out of the way to ‘let go and let God’.

“I have learned to listen to God as much as pray to God. If you have the faith that you are being listened to, then you have to believe in miracles. I’ve witnessed them unfold and have experienced the majesty of that power.

“I can’t imagine my life without having had Frankie in it. I feel grateful that I was given an opportunity to do something constructive with my grief, and give Frankie the legacy he deserves.”

Michaela is a member of Netherlee Parish Church, recently united with Stamperland.

“It is lovely to be part of that church as some of the congregation still remember my dad from his days as assistant minister,” she says. The churches are very supportive of Starchild. As is Crosshill Queen’s Park Govan, the successor congregation to her father’s old church at Crosshill Queen’s Park.

“Both churches are working with us on the Sunflower Sanctuary Project for children with disabilities and autism. We are doing this project in memory of my partner Rony, who died last year from lung cancer. Right now we are in the process of raising the funds for this project. I don’t know how, but we will do it because I know God, Rony and Frankie will be shining their light on that project.

“My love for Frankie knew no boundaries of any kind, nor his love for me. People are saying that my book is ‘timely’. It honours the deep love and connection between a black child and a white child. I hope it can be read by people of all colours without prejudice or racially motivated judgement. Otherwise we have learned nothing.”

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You can find out more about the charity at www.starchildcharity.org
The book, Starchild, is available from Amazon.

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