The Briton who introduced foster care to China – ‘it was the place where I was supposed to be’
Twenty years after British charity Care for Children began advising China, and almost a million family placements later, its founder Robert Glover talks about fostering miracles, moving from Guernsey to Shanghai with his wife and six children in 1998 and why they miss China
Football focus I never knew my father. He left when I was two and I was raised by my mother and grandmother and two sisters in Norfolk (in East Anglia, Britain). My passion was football. Some coaches from Norwich City chose a few of us from the school team to spend time training with our heroes but, at 16, I was quite skinny. When the coach said I wasn’t big enough, I remember cycling home with tears down my face. That was my dream and the world had fallen apart.
I joined the Royal Navy in 1973 and served on two submarines. For some reason, I was fascinated by China and I thought maybe the navy would be a good opportunity to see Hong Kong and Singapore. But it was the cold war and we were chasing Russian subs in the North Sea. By the time I was 18, I was six foot two inches tall and broad. I played football for the navy and then I played for Portsmouth for a season. It wasn’t all the glamour it is today, the money was poor, and I got injured.
An appetite for China Back in Norfolk, I saw an advert for a housemaster and PE teacher at a “school for maladjusted boys”, as they used to call them. That was a baptism of fire but I went on to work for Norfolk County Council and eventually got my degree in social work.
By 1996, I was in Guernsey, managing some of their services, but I still had this fascination for China. I went with a friend to Hong Kong and afterwards we flew into Shanghai. And that was … incredible. I knew it was the place where I was supposed to be. Some people had given us tickets to the Special Olympics and I got invited to a lunch where there were some rude Westerners who were wagging their fingers at the Chinese, telling them off.
I didn’t know who the Chinese guys with us were but I told them I was loving the food. One of them was the director of Shanghai’s Civil Affairs Bureau, and he told his staff, “Get rid of the other guys and bring Robert to dinner.” We got on very well, and he asked if I’d come back and help them. I thought it would be an opportunity to see more of China.
