The crossbench peer grew up in care and went on to become an actor, an academic and one of the first black women in the House of Lords. Now she has written a memoir documenting her remarkable story

In March 2012, Lola Young, who sits as a crossbench peer in the House of Lords, clambered on to the rush-hour bus that would take her from the children’s social care office in Islington, north London, to her home. In her arms was a box: a collection of papers she was so anxious to open she did it there on the bottom deck of the number 38, spreading the pages precariously across her lap. Names, dates, brief notes about prams and the application of olive oil to infant skin…

As the bus wove and lurched, Young read the story of the beginning of her life, and already there was so much to take in. On 30 July 1951, a baby with her name was, she learned, delivered to a Daisy Vince of 207 Tufnell Park Road – a baby that was then eight weeks old, rather than six, as she’d always been told. The traffic inched along, and as it did, she wondered… What difference does a fortnight make? None, probably. But if she’d been misinformed about this, there was surely more news to come.