Swansea man who ‘should be dead’ reunites with teacher who changed his life – BBC News
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"Statistically I should be dead, in prison or homeless."
Sam Gardner lived in 15 foster homes between the ages of three and 17, and said the instability was a "big challenge". He never felt at home anywhere and was sometimes hungry and neglected. When he left the care system at 18, his future was uncertain. But he said a few "anchors" helped him to lay the foundations for adulthood. Now, the BBC has helped to reunite the 33-year-old with one of them – his former teacher who "saw past" Sam being a child in foster care.
"She made me feel like I belonged," said Sam, who went on to become a teacher himself.
Twenty-five years after she taught him in primary school, Ms Meek and Sam met again
Sam said he didn’t really feel at home until he met his last set of foster carers, when he was aged 17. Despite his start in life, Sam defied the odds to become a primary school teacher, inspired by one special woman who he said believed in him at his school in south Wales.
"She wasn’t a perfect teacher but she saw past my label as a looked-after child. She also demanded that I didn’t look at that label," recalled Sam.
He said before joining Christine Meek’s class aged eight, school was a "challenging place" and that he was academically two years behind his peers.
Sam’s story of hope comes after a recent report found young care leavers in England are dying at a far higher rate than other people their age.
BBC Wales reunited Ms Meek and Sam at St Michael’s Catholic Primary School in Pontypridd, where she first taught him 25 years ago.
"I just want to say you’ve changed my life, I wouldn’t be where I am without you," said Sam, as he hugged Ms Meek.
She replied: "It’s you who should be proud of what you’ve done, because it’s you who has done it."
Ms Meek described Sam as "quiet in school ‘but that he also tested boundaries**."**
"I didn’t know a lot about Sam’s background and in some ways I think that helps," she said. "The expectations were the same for everyone in the class."
Ms Meek said it was a pleasure to hear what Sam had gone on to achieve in his life. "As a teacher you plant seeds, you don’t know what they’re going to grow and that’s a lovely thing," she added.
Sam said: "Walking back through those doors as the person I am today, I realised just how much of St Michael’s I’d carried with me. My childhood involved so much change, but that school gave me something steady to stand on."
He said it was emotional being back, and a privilege to catch up with Ms Meek. "Ms Meek and the other adults there planted seeds in me that I probably couldn’t see at the time, but they became part of the foundation I grew from," he said.
Sam, who now lives in Swansea, has recently been looking through his care files and shared an excerpt with the BBC.
