Music allowed me to dream.

Ambitions weren’t part of the world I lived in. They must inspire to get others to aspire. Inspiration requires trust. The care system has never been able to deliver that.

When I was 16, I promised myself I would play at a major UK Festival. It was straight after performing my first gig in the UK to a few hundred people at the Bickerstock Festival, just outside of Liverpool. Maybe it was the adrenaline. Maybe it was arrogance. Maybe it just was. But somehow, I had plucked up the courage to do what many people in the care system don’t. Have a dream. Exactly 15 years later, to the day, I played my first major UK music festival. Last weekend, I played to a packed tent of 3,500 people at YNOT Festival’s second stage. Why did I have ambition when the others I lived with didn’t?

Before that first weekend in Aug 2009, ambitions weren’t part of the world I lived in. It was a very monochrome place. To better yourself was to stop offending, to go back to school, to be able to get a minimum wage job. Goals that went below the minimum in any other world. That’s how it was living in children’s homes. I lived in a system built to care but just couldn’t. I had been playing guitar for almost a year at that point. Music did something to me. It ignited something I hadn’t experienced since my dad died when I was ten years old. It showed me a world with colour. Once that door was open, it was tough to close.

It has become a tradition for a new government to spit out the old cliché of needing to end the ‘bigotry of low expectations’. Unaware that Pharaoh Rameses II-esque attitude of “so let it be written, so let it be done”, is the reason bigotry is perpetuated. Without dedication, commitment, or insecurity of failure, the next government will continue the tradition and keep the world where I grew up in a colourless place.

How do you cure an infection of low expectations? They must inspire to get others to aspire. Inspiration requires trust. The care system has never been able to deliver that. By its nature, every child in the care system is there because an adult has broken their trust. This is where music is powerful because at its very foundation is trust. Trust in the instrument, other players, and the audience. It is a rare creative pursuit that is within every one of us. By learning to trust, I allowed myself to be inspired, once I was inspired, I aspired.

Through music, I learnt that things don’t happen overnight. You must make the personal and emotional investment to make a dream come true. It is so tough. But it was having been in care that helped give me the drive to see it through. It taught me resilience. That no one was going to come and help. That there was no other option. That I would have to work harder and prove myself. It became a way of life. An Extension of myself. Music allowed me to dream. I would hear and read the stories and absorb knowledge. It would bring out the best in me. Soon, I would feel free from the straight jacket that restricted me. This freedom has expanded to every area of life. Even now, with writing.

This is just my experience; maybe music is my thing, and maybe what works for me doesn’t for others. However, in 2010, Youth Music released a report showing that over 50% of the young people from the care system who had participated in high-quality musical activities had positive outcomes. Yet, music still has not been at the forefront of the policy on looked after children. If the new government is genuine at this time in ending the cycle of low expectations, then it is clear to me that music will have to play a part in it.

After we did our set and came off stage, one of my band members approached me and asked where do we go from here. Although YNOT is a major music festival in the UK, it is not the music festival. That is Glastonbury. Do we have within ourselves to continue to push and push ourselves to reach it? I don’t know. Do I want it enough? I don’t know. But the fact that I am even able to contemplate it is something only music has allowed me to do.

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