Close to home

Samantha Morton in a scene from the film River Queen. Photo / Supplied

She is a Hollywood actress who has twice been nominated for an Oscar and counts celebrities such as Kate Moss and Robert Carlyle among her friends.

But Samantha Morton has never disowned her traumatic upbringing in Nottingham, one of England's most violent cities, where she spent some of her formative years in care.

And this week, at the request of a social worker who helped bring her up, Morton led a demonstration in her home city against plans to close of one of its four children's homes, which campaigners say would deny a new generation the same kind of help she received.

"I went into care first as an infant. I left when I was 18," she said.

"Some children have been subjected to horrific abuse or neglect. They need specialist care so they can go on like myself and be positive role models.

"I'm pleading with the council from the bottom of my heart not to close down this children's home."

Nottingham City Council says it has been forced to consider closing a home as part of cuts which will see 350 staff made redundant, as a result of the credit crunch.

But at the demonstration, Morton, now 31, argued that closing children's homes was the wrong way to do this.

"I would not be where I am today without the support of my residential social workers," she said. "Living in a children's home for me was a positive experience."

Morton drew on her own childhood experiences of a violent, drunken father and a mother she once said "didn't pay me any attention, she didn't care", and the care system that intervened to help her.

At the age of 13, Morton was living in a children's home and her artistic talent flowered.

Morton's latest movie, The Messenger, premiered at the Sundance Festival in January.

Often, she has played women in fraught family relationships: a role she knows from her own childhood (her parents split up when she was aged three) and from her adult life (she has two daughters to different fathers).

She has fought for children's rights, as an ambassador for Save the Children but, on the other hand, she angered River Queen director Vincent Ward by demanding a 14-year-old Auckland actress, Mikaila Hutchinson, be dumped from the movie.

Morton has said she might have killed herself at the age of 16, such was the turmoil in her life.

In Nottingham, Peter Savage, regional organiser for council workers' union Unison, claimed the council was considering removing help from similarly vulnerable young people.

"If you haven't got the homes, I don't know what you do if a child has to be taken into care," he said. "Is the director of social services or some individual meant to take them home with them?"

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