Ashley John-Baptiste: Rejection, aspirations, and a lack of hugs
Happy Place
Fearne Cotton
4.7 • 15.6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 June 2024
⏱️ 64 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How big do you let yourself dream? BBC broadcaster Ashley John-Baptise grew up in care, and knows all too well that love can help cultivate aspiration.
In this chat with Fearne, Ashley talks through his childhood, from being bounced between foster parents and care homes, to ending up with a history degree from Cambridge University.
He explains how he became a colder and more detached child as protection against constant rejection. Ashley also talks about the very real impact not having access to touch and attachment to a primary care giver can have on a person’s future outcomes.
Fearne and Ashley chat about the huge influence kind and persistent adults can have over a child’s life. You don’t have to be a parent to positively impact a child; teaching, mentoring, and community work will make a huge difference to an individual, and as a result, society too...
Ashley’s memoir, Looked After, is out on June 13th.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello it's Fern here popping in quickly before the show because I really want to hear from you. |
| 0:06.0 | I am forever grateful to you every single time you press play on an episode of Happy Place |
| 0:11.2 | and this show really is for you. So in the interest of doing |
| 0:16.3 | more stuff that you love and less of the stuff you're not bothered by, I would love |
| 0:20.6 | it if you took a couple of minutes to fill out a little survey for me. |
| 0:24.8 | The link will be in the show notes. |
| 0:27.2 | Your input on the content and the format and the guests and all those types of things is so important to help me and the Happy Place team |
| 0:35.6 | shape the future of Happy Place. So just click on the link in the show notes to |
| 0:40.6 | share all your thoughts and musings. I appreciate you loads. |
| 0:45.0 | Hello I'm Fern Cotton and this is Happy Place, the show that unpicks how the past |
| 0:51.5 | affects the present. Today I'm chatting to Ashley John Baptiste. |
| 0:56.0 | I was eventually moved to a children's home, a residential care home with shift workers. |
| 1:01.2 | And I didn't know that was happening until I was |
| 1:03.5 | turfed into a car. |
| 1:05.1 | We're driving off and I'm I'm just screaming and I'm I'm |
| 1:09.5 | uncontrollable and as the car drives off she gets smaller because we're going into the distance. |
| 1:14.8 | We turn a corner and she's gone. |
| 1:17.6 | And that was the first time I recall the deep rejection of being in care. |
| 1:24.0 | Ashley is an award-winning BBC presenter and reporter. |
| 1:28.0 | He says if you'd told 16-year-old Ashley he'd grow up to be an esteemed broadcaster, a dad and a husband he wouldn't have believed |
| 1:36.2 | you. |
| 1:37.2 | He was in foster care from the age of two. |
... |
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