Hong Kong’s Youth Arts Foundation founder Lindsey McAlister: ‘I knew I’d been brought here to do something special’
After falling in love with performing at a young age and travelling along the Silk Road, McAlister arrived in Hong Kong, where she started engaging children with the arts
Lindsey with an “e”: My mum was a civil servant, working in the births’ registration section, when she fell pregnant with me. In 1960, Lindsey was the least common female name in the UK, so my parents settled on that. They chose to spell Lindsey with an “e” rather than the more usual “a” for girls … when I sign my name and someone doesn’t know who I am, they think I’m a bloke.
I spent my early years in Southport, a seaside town in Merseyside, England, where my dad managed a plastics factory. I have two younger brothers, James and Robert. I was always that kid with the hairbrush singing in front of the mirror. When I was six, I’d put on one-person shows in Gran’s garden; I had a very theatrical side, but my family didn’t.
I was eight when we moved to Scotland. I had a bit of a Scouse accent and had the mickey taken out of me relentlessly. I realised I needed to fit in, so I developed a broad Scottish accent – it must have been good because I won my school’s Rabbie Burns poetry competition for my rendition of To a Mouse.
Stage struck: Aged nine, I remember going to see a production of Iolanthe, the Gilbert and Sullivan musical. Even though it was just a school production with a school orchestra, when the lights went down and the first triangle was played, I got tingles down my spine. I knew this was the world I wanted to be in.
My family moved every three or four years with my dad’s job. From Scotland we moved to Cheshire, which I didn’t particularly like, but I got involved in dance and drama. And from there we moved back to Southport, where I struggled through my O Levels. My parents let me go to art college to do my A Levels.