My forthcoming book…

My Next book will be titled: “Couldn’t You Just Call Me John?” A layman’s Guide to Learning Disability and Autism.

In my research I listened to over three hundred people telling me about learning disabilities and autism.  They included experts from the NHS, the social services and various schools, together with the day-to-day support workers, GPs, nurses and those who provided care. However, above all I listened to the people with learning disabilities and their parents.  This book is theirs.   Virtually every one of the three hundred told me that no one understood them – what their daily life was like.  I was told that I had to tell their story – or the many different stories, because they are all very different individuals – and they insisted that the book had to be for the general public.

I once made a list of words and phrases meaning ‘mad’. I reached 360. The best [worst] was ‘He’s got a kangaroo loose in the top paddock’. The kindest was ‘differently able’. I became discouraged when I started writing about people with autism and learning difficulties to be told that such people were now called ‘service users’. When a lovely man with autism was asked how he would like to be known, he said – after some thought – “Couldn’t you just call me John?”