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details. loved ones.

1:13

That's a-u-r-a.com James

1:17

was, it was about to turn three.

1:19

We went to Pembroke Castle, and I

1:21

remember taking James to the top of

1:24

one of the towers, and as anyone

1:26

would say, what can you see, James?

1:28

Can you see all the little cars

1:30

and the little people? And in response,

1:33

he was just reciting scripts from kids'

1:35

TV in a very sort of

1:37

low whisper. He'd say, time for

1:39

telly-tilly. is John Harris. Many of

1:41

you might know him as the

1:43

presenter of our sister podcast, Politics

1:46

Weeklyics Weekly. He's talking about his

1:48

son James. And that sort of

1:50

scripting got even more pronounced at

1:52

night. I remember going up when he

1:54

was in bed and he was really kind

1:56

of intensely scripting coming out like

1:58

a human tape recorder. with

2:01

these things that he heard on the

2:03

TV. And I couldn't sort of pull

2:05

him out of it. I remember kind

2:07

of saying, I'm here now, you're okay,

2:09

and he wasn't really registering that I

2:11

was there. I felt quite frightened

2:13

at that point. John is a

2:16

talker. He likes to debate, to

2:18

argue, to chew the fat, but

2:20

communicating with James was hard. And

2:22

then I bought an iPod, I

2:24

bought a little black iPod classic,

2:26

and filled it up with music,

2:28

and we had an iPod doc

2:30

in the kitchen in the kitchen.

2:32

he would navigate his way to

2:34

albums and songs that didn't have

2:37

pictures with them. I was thinking,

2:39

well, you must be like reading

2:41

that somehow. And then I wrote

2:43

down songtiles on a piece of

2:45

paper and held him up and

2:47

he said, Penny Lake or I

2:49

am the war or so whatever.

2:51

And I go, oh, you can

2:53

recognise words, you know. So straight

2:55

away the iPod acquired this magic,

2:57

but then it also, the magic

3:00

consisted of the fact that he

3:02

was just playing songs. He like

3:04

loads and was completely gone on

3:06

it. Music sort of broke this

3:08

mood of worry and introspection and

3:10

all the rest of it. Because

3:12

for a while at our Lois

3:14

we didn't have any music on

3:16

at all I think it seemed

3:18

sort of inappropriate but then it

3:21

really came sort of roaring back

3:23

and it came roaring back through

3:25

him. Now John has written a

3:27

book about how he and James

3:29

found a connection through music. It's

3:31

called Maybe I'm Amazed. It's named

3:33

after a Paul McCartney song that

3:35

McCartney wrote about his wife Linda

3:37

after the Beatles split up. It's

3:39

a song about love and commitment

3:42

and the way that life can

3:44

take us by surprise. A feeling

3:46

familiar to any parent of a

3:48

special needs child. The lyrics go,

3:50

maybe I'm amazed at the way

3:52

you're with me all the time.

3:54

Maybe I'm afraid of the way

3:56

I leave you. Look

4:03

at the knocker on John's door, it's

4:05

a guitar. It's a guitar. Long before

4:08

John Harris was a political broadcaster and

4:10

a guardian columnist, he was a music

4:12

writer. He got his big break when

4:14

he was just 19, when he submitted

4:16

a review of the Happy Mondays at

4:19

the Hacienda in Manchester, hammered out on

4:21

a typewriter. He's invited me to his

4:23

home in Froom in Somerset, which he

4:25

shares with his partner Ginny, as well

4:28

as James and his younger sister Rosa.

4:30

We sit down in their front room,

4:32

which is filled with musical instruments. The

4:34

walls are lined with plastenum disks, and

4:37

there's a glitter ball hanging from the

4:39

rafters. Music is at the heart of

4:41

this family. I mean, let's not forget.

4:43

You know, the reason James exists and

4:46

Rosa is sister is because when I

4:48

was 25, the day the Beatles put

4:50

out or announced their sort of comeback

4:52

single free as a bird. I went

4:54

down at the Savoy Hotel and the

4:57

woman who handed me a Beatles CD

4:59

and I thought, oh you're nice, you

5:01

know, was Ginny because she worked at

5:03

Parlifer, the Beatles' record label effectively. So

5:06

that's how Central Music is to this

5:08

whole story. John and Ginny fell in

5:10

love. They moved out of London and

5:12

ultimately decided to have children together. James

5:15

came first in 2006. but it was

5:17

when he was about three when he

5:19

started to recite from the teletubbies in

5:21

that blank monotone that they started to

5:24

worry. Well we were first-time parents when

5:26

James was born and he took to

5:28

walk in slightly later than it said

5:30

in the books but I think that

5:33

had been the case with me when

5:35

I was little I think I remember

5:37

asking my mum that question and he

5:39

talked in quite a sort of staccato

5:41

sort of minimal way but he had

5:44

a lot of nouns you know his

5:46

labelling seems really really really really great.

5:48

There were a couple of occasions when

5:50

we'd sort of meet new people or

5:53

in an acquaintance, you know, someone you

5:55

happen to meet in the course of

5:57

being on holiday or something and they'd

5:59

say, he's very... placid, I remember that

6:02

word, and I didn't really like that,

6:04

I thought what does that mean, why

6:06

have you said that? And I could

6:08

see that, you know, he James seemed

6:11

very sort of accepting of how the

6:13

world was at any given moment, you

6:15

know, he would just sort of kind

6:17

of sit back and say, oh that's

6:19

happened, no, it wasn't demanding. No, I'm

6:22

not kind of self assertive. I remember

6:24

we went to count festival, he might

6:26

not have even been two, and there

6:28

was a kind of toddler's area there.

6:31

with all these toys and I remember

6:33

another toddler sort of crashed in very

6:35

close to him and took whatever he

6:37

was doing away from him and he

6:40

didn't seem bothered and I thought I'd

6:42

be fuming if I was you. A

6:44

little while later the family moved to

6:46

Somerset and James started at a new

6:49

nursery and they said you know we

6:51

think he might be autistic. In that

6:53

period of time between the nursery saying

6:55

you should get him checked out and

6:58

you actually getting the diagnosis you sort

7:00

of describing the book how you're veering

7:02

between different emotions on the one hand,

7:04

you know, maybe you're going to have

7:06

some mass genius kind of romantic thinking.

7:09

Yeah, so tell me about the magical

7:11

thinking. So this was before James had

7:13

actually been formally diagnosed. So you have

7:15

this weird period where people had said,

7:18

well, he might be autistic. And we

7:20

sort of knew, oh yeah, that makes

7:22

sense. And then you start googling frantically.

7:24

And then it all begins to make

7:27

sense. But the other thing that Google

7:29

does as well is it renders everything

7:31

nightmarish if you're not careful. Like wherever's

7:33

the most difficult version of anything that

7:36

you have to cope with, you know,

7:38

if you've got a headache, you've got

7:40

a brain tumor. That aspect of search

7:42

engine. That definitely happened. I remember reading

7:44

about this thing, childhood disintegrative disorder, which

7:47

is very, very rare, and thinking, childhood

7:49

disintegrative disorder, which is very, very rare.

7:51

And thinking, oh God, could it be

7:53

that? And that's essentially when your child

7:56

just kind of loses all their faculties.

7:58

And that was just some rabbit hole

8:00

that Google took me. Eventually, James was

8:02

diagnosed with autism by a pediatrician. in

8:05

our naivety we thought, oh now we've

8:07

got this diagnosis, we wave it around

8:09

and lots of doors must open and

8:11

of course they don't. And also the

8:14

way diagnosis was framed and I think

8:16

this is still the case for lots

8:18

and lots of parents was it was

8:20

framed in terms of what he couldn't

8:23

do and ideas about impairments and you

8:25

know the idea that your child was

8:27

kind of outside or beyond normality you

8:29

know that aim B and C or

8:31

what You're a typical kids can do

8:34

or should be able to do and

8:36

your child can't do those. It was

8:38

a very overwhelmingly sort of negative experience

8:40

and that was really hard to cope

8:43

with. For a long while I felt

8:45

scared. And what did you fear for

8:47

James' future? It was just a sort

8:49

of deep flailing anxiety. It wasn't tight

8:52

to anything specific. It wasn't oh, you

8:54

know, oh my son's never going to

8:56

be a professional football or an aeropl

8:58

plane pilot or anything. I mean that

9:01

didn't even occur. I just had that

9:03

we both had a general sense that

9:05

life was going to be a lot

9:07

more complicated than trying than we thought

9:09

it was going to be. The months

9:12

after James' diagnosis were fraught with worry.

9:14

James wasn't sleeping and either John or

9:16

Ginny had to spend whole nights lying

9:18

on cushions outside his room, putting him

9:21

back into bed once or twice an

9:23

hour. Advocating and caring for James became

9:25

a full-time job. They spent their savings

9:27

on a lawyer to fight the local

9:30

authority to get James the support he

9:32

needed. It was a soul-destroying period. Amid

9:34

all of the worry, John remembers, there

9:36

was one glint of light. Music started

9:39

to fill the house again, thanks to

9:41

the family iPod, which moved from the

9:43

kitchen into James' little hands. He took

9:45

it to all of his examinations and

9:48

appointments, usually with his kid-sized red headphones.

9:50

And as it played, his world started

9:52

to slowly open up. The Beatles was

9:54

a favourite of his right from the

9:56

start. Right from the start, yeah. I

9:59

am the walrus was one of the

10:01

first beetle songs that he got completely

10:03

immersed in. He just... found it and

10:05

started playing it and what would happen

10:08

was he would play the first 10

10:10

or 15 seconds up to the point

10:12

that the vocal started and then he'd

10:14

stop and go back to the beginning

10:17

he'd play it again and then he'd

10:19

start and go back to the beginning

10:21

he'd play it again and then he'd

10:23

start and go back to the beginning

10:26

and play it again and more on

10:28

it would go which is quite kind

10:30

of infuriating if you're kind of hearing

10:32

this and that's what happened. He phonetically

10:34

learned all the words. It's quite complicated.

10:37

I am he as you are he

10:39

as you are me and we are

10:41

all together see how they run like

10:43

pigs from a gun and see how

10:46

they fly. I mean they're quite ornate

10:48

words right and he'd internalize I was

10:50

completely memorize them and not only that

10:52

would get all the different bits of

10:55

the song and where they fitted in

10:57

and he just knew it all breaks

10:59

down and sitting in an English garden

11:01

waiting for the sun and all of

11:04

that. Completely... memorized it and evidently completely

11:06

loved it. And I think at that

11:08

stage I thought, wow, you've got a

11:10

really musical brain, you know. And so

11:12

he moved on quite quickly, not moved

11:15

on from the Beatles, but developed a

11:17

deep love of the German band Kraftwerk.

11:19

Huge. And his favorite song was, and

11:21

I think still is, Autobahn. What did

11:24

he love so much about it? And

11:26

what a question. What do you think

11:28

appealed to him so much? Well, so

11:30

my understanding of what appealed to James

11:33

about Autobarn by Crafwood has kind of

11:35

evolved over time. Because Autobarn's pretty repetitious.

11:37

He goes on for 22 minutes. He

11:39

goes on for 22 minutes and the

11:42

phrase, your Germans better than mine Helen,

11:44

but van van van after Autobarn, is

11:46

repeated. in excess of 30 times. Yeah,

11:48

literally we are driving, we are driving

11:51

on the motorway. Yeah. Sounds better in

11:53

German. Most things sound better in German.

11:55

So in a way it was... It

11:57

catered to that way of listening where

11:59

you played the same thing over and

12:02

over again, which at the time I

12:04

thought was an example of what some

12:06

psychologists called rigid and repetitive behaviour in

12:08

autism. I'm not sure it was. I

12:11

think James just found the sort of

12:13

layers of sound and the experience of

12:15

hearing these musical moments so fascinating that

12:17

like anyone would he wanted to return

12:20

to it straight away and experience it

12:22

was like endlessly replenishable magic to him.

12:24

And you write in the book how

12:26

he immersed himself in his kind of

12:29

usual fashion of getting to know the

12:31

first 20-30 seconds. And it's got quite

12:33

an unusual start, hasn't it? Starts with

12:35

a car ignition getting turned on and

12:37

a honking horn. To this day, if

12:40

we turn onto a motorway, if it's

12:42

the M4 or the M5 or something,

12:44

he'll kind of insist that we have

12:46

a water bar on, because then the

12:49

journey becomes magical, doesn't it? A

12:54

few years after James' craftwork obsession

12:56

began, John and Ginny took him

12:58

to watch them play. The most

13:00

amazing musical experience I've probably ever

13:02

had, that gig at the Blue

13:04

Dot Festival, craftwork with a Saturday

13:06

night headliner, and we took James,

13:09

and he knew they're pretty much

13:11

their entire catalog backwards at that

13:13

point. I mean, he really was

13:15

absolutely steeped in it. And you

13:17

wear 3D glasses, so it all

13:19

kind of has shape. It was

13:21

just this lovely, sort of summer's

13:23

evening. And Ginny, my partner,

13:25

put a hand on James' chest

13:27

and his heart was beating so

13:30

fast and just kind of flapping

13:32

his hands, getting really, really excited.

13:34

And then when they played a

13:36

water bomb, which I think was

13:38

about two-thirds of the way through,

13:41

with these visuals of an animated

13:43

VW beetle driving down a German

13:45

road, you know, he was having

13:47

the sort of mystical experience. But

13:50

we all were. It was amazing.

13:52

Absolutely amazing. And, um... I

13:55

remember driving back through the Cheshire countryside,

13:57

picking that's the best gig I'll ever

13:59

see. You're

14:01

quite emotional here. You describe me?

14:03

You describe it. It was astonishing.

14:06

It was astonishing. After writing

14:08

about music and politics for decades, John

14:10

knows a lot of people in that

14:12

world. One day, Billy Bragg came around

14:14

to their house. I was recruited to chair

14:17

the political sessions in the left field

14:19

at Glastonbury, which is a big top

14:21

where they have music at night and

14:23

political debate during the day, and I've

14:25

done some of those. I got to

14:27

know Billy really well, actually, and

14:30

he drove up here. to talk about what

14:32

we were going to put on

14:34

politics-wise at Glastonbury that year.

14:36

So it must have been

14:38

in the spring or summer or early

14:40

summer and James was about to

14:43

go to middle school and James

14:45

had already had a he'd come up

14:47

with this sort of mantra no

14:49

more school no more school no more

14:51

school no more school and Billy

14:54

very graciously picked up my acoustic

14:56

guitar and he figured out

14:58

No more than three

15:01

calls, I might only

15:03

have been two, and

15:05

it sounded like

15:07

a sort of

15:09

acoustic version of the

15:12

class. And we filmed

15:14

it. Ready? Here we

15:17

go. James. One, two,

15:19

three, four. And that James'

15:22

lever's assembly, and they showed this

15:24

video, it was the opening thing

15:26

in this lever's assembly, was James

15:29

and Billy Braggs' in No More

15:31

School, like a two-person clash.

15:33

Amazing. And how did he feel

15:35

seeing that on screen? He was

15:37

thrilled. He was thrilled doing it. Yeah.

15:39

And yeah, how did you discover that

15:41

he had this love of performing music

15:43

in front of the crowd just by

15:45

doing it? When he was nine or

15:47

ten, his speech therapist said, because James

15:49

reads as well as he does then

15:52

he'll be able to read music and

15:54

if he likes music as much as

15:56

that imagine those two things together so

15:58

that's what happened and I found a

16:00

keyboard teacher and we started, James started

16:02

having lessons for half an hour

16:04

a week. But what really really

16:06

floated his boat was me showing

16:08

him out of play and waiting

16:10

for the man with the velvet

16:12

underground. And I played that in

16:14

a band when I was in

16:16

sixth form college in Manchester. So

16:18

I showed James out of play

16:20

on the keyboard and I played

16:22

the guitar. And then when he

16:24

went to middle school, I very

16:26

quickly discovered via this brilliant music

16:28

teacher called Miss Parsons that they

16:30

were having a sort of... talent

16:32

show, not to the point they

16:34

were winners and losers, but just

16:36

a sort of, you know, a

16:38

production. And she said with James

16:40

play a couple of songs on

16:42

the keyboard. And I thought, because

16:44

I didn't know what was going

16:46

to happen, whether he'd take well

16:48

to it, I thought, well I'll

16:50

play the guitar, you know, which

16:52

at least I'm on the stage

16:54

to make sure it all goes

16:56

okay. And we decided to do,

16:58

I'm waiting for the moment, which

17:00

is a song about score and

17:02

heroin in Harlem in Harlem. It's

17:04

not very veiled. And was Jane

17:06

singing? Yeah, so he did the

17:08

vocals like Markey Smith from the

17:10

fall, that's what it sounded like.

17:12

Oh, I'm a weather far my

17:14

man are. Like that. Got his

17:16

massive round of applause at the

17:18

end. Everyone was whooping and whistling

17:20

and all this. And like it

17:22

emotional. First time that happened, it's

17:24

weird. I don't think it was

17:26

going to happen with this bit.

17:28

It was just great. because it

17:30

was in retrospect it was the

17:32

high point of inclusion of James's

17:35

inclusion right so a word that

17:37

politicians use about education and special

17:39

needs education in particular at the

17:41

moment you hear it every day

17:43

right is inclusion the idea being

17:45

which I believe in as a

17:47

principle you know getting it right

17:49

can be quite difficult but the

17:51

idea is that if a child's

17:53

autistic or as ADHD or dyslexia

17:55

or dyspraxia or Down syndrome or

17:57

you know, whatever it is. the

17:59

assumption in most or many cases

18:01

should be they go to a

18:03

mainstream school because that's good for

18:05

them and also it's good for

18:07

other kids to learn about human

18:09

difference that's the other reason I

18:11

believe in it and music was

18:13

James's key to inclusion the thing

18:15

where he really shone and probably

18:17

I dare say some of the

18:19

other kids and parents would know

18:21

James as oh he's the autistic

18:23

kid in their class but can

18:25

you imagine then you come around

18:27

the corner and he's singing developer

18:29

underground in a t-shirt with

18:31

Andy Warhol's banana on it. And

18:33

he was just brilliant. It was

18:35

amazing. And your book as well

18:38

as being a memoir, it's sort

18:40

of reads a bit like a

18:42

journey of discovery about autistic people

18:44

and how they experience music and

18:46

you got to interview a lot

18:49

of experts. It is, that's true.

18:51

And what have you learned about

18:53

how autistic people, how James experiences

18:55

music? There's an amazing woman called

18:57

Pamela Heaton who works out of

19:00

goldsmiths in London who is, as

19:02

far as I understand it, is

19:04

sort of at the cutting edge

19:06

of a lot of understanding about

19:08

this and has been for a

19:10

long time. And when I spoke

19:13

to her, all these experiences or

19:15

observations that I'd had of James

19:17

down the years and this intense

19:19

connection with music and this sense

19:21

that I got that he was

19:24

hearing it in a way that

19:26

most people don't, she sort of

19:28

completely validated that and said that's

19:30

right. For a lot of autistic

19:32

people. listen to music is like

19:35

looking at a painting while you're

19:37

on LSD everything becomes if you're

19:39

lucky good acid but everything becomes

19:41

much more vivid and kind of

19:43

sense filling and all those things

19:46

and that's definitely true. Makes sense

19:48

why he wants to break the

19:50

songs down and manageable chups. So

19:52

the reason he'd been playing Iron

19:54

the Warus over and over again

19:57

was not like some monotonous repetitious

19:59

ritual at all it's because of

20:01

what he could hear in it.

20:03

Yeah. That's just an amazing thing.

20:05

And a lot of autistic people...

20:08

have it which then explains why

20:10

there is this speculation going back

20:12

through history about whether Mozart was

20:14

autistic Beethoven as well you know

20:16

it's definitely a thing. And did

20:19

you also learn about how autistic

20:21

people experience emotion? It's a stereotype

20:23

again isn't it of autistic people

20:25

that they somehow are emotionless lacking

20:27

empathy but my understanding of your

20:30

book is it's not the problem

20:32

isn't experiencing the emotions it's describing.

20:34

Yeah, well there's part of, so

20:36

as part of autism for a

20:38

lot of people is a condition

20:40

called Alexithymia which was given its

20:43

name in the mid-1970s, which is

20:45

the inability to name the emotions

20:47

that you're feeling. Doesn't mean you

20:49

don't feel them. That's the crucial

20:51

thing. And so if anyone's got

20:54

any ridiculous stereotypes about autistic people,

20:56

I mean you see those in

20:58

some quite sort of respectable books

21:00

about this, that and the other.

21:02

this idea of autistic people being

21:05

cold and emotionless and so I

21:07

was just wrong. You know, just

21:09

because you can't name the feeling

21:11

I have and it doesn't mean

21:13

you're not having it. And James's

21:16

experience in music I think is

21:18

proof of that. Very definitely. And

21:20

he hears emotion in music. I

21:22

mean I know that for a

21:24

fact. It's four o'clock and James

21:27

comes back from college. We all

21:29

bundle in the car to go

21:31

to a music group for young

21:33

people with learning disabilities. James sits

21:35

in the front and producer Eleanor

21:38

and I are in the back.

21:40

And it's immediately clear that James

21:42

will be the DJ. Like his

21:44

dad, James has an intense, obsessional

21:46

connection with music. They both love

21:49

a music fact, dates, labels, band

21:51

line-ups, track listings. Are they still

21:53

going Vampire Weekend? Yeah, they're playing

21:55

the festival in ports over the

21:57

summer. Are you going to go?

22:01

Sound Lab is a music-making group

22:03

for autistic and learning disabled young

22:05

people in bath and summer set.

22:07

So loads of things that you

22:09

need to know if you're the

22:11

parent of a special needs child.

22:14

I just found out by having

22:16

chats here. There was one Friday

22:18

where we nearly didn't come and

22:20

I turned up, suddenly I understood

22:22

what I was entitled to from

22:24

social care, and I had no

22:26

idea about it before I came

22:28

in. And it wasn't like somebody

22:30

sat me down and said, we

22:32

will now tell you about social

22:35

care, it's just that's what you

22:37

talk about. As we're chatting, John's

22:39

ears suddenly prick up. He can

22:41

hear James singing jumping jack flash

22:43

by the rolling stones in the

22:45

main hall. but he seems delighted

22:47

by the attention and he grabs

22:49

the mind. I'll hold it now.

22:51

Singing into it while accompanying himself

22:53

on the keyboard with his other

22:55

hand. All right, a jumping jack

22:58

flash, it's a gas gas gas

23:00

gas. There are about 10 young

23:02

people at this week's sound lab.

23:04

They all sit in a circle

23:06

and have an instrument to play,

23:08

whether it's a tambourine or for

23:10

the more musically gifted children, a

23:12

guitar or maybe a bass. Everything

23:14

is going swimming swimmingly in the

23:16

session, until suddenly... It's not. One

23:19

young person has a meltdown, and

23:21

it seems to come out of

23:23

nowhere. It isn't a temper tantrum,

23:25

but a case of sensory overload,

23:27

a reaction to an overwhelming frustrating

23:29

experience. While the grown-ups try to

23:31

calm the boy down, James sits

23:33

patiently at his keyboard, waiting his

23:35

turn. He and all of the

23:37

other young people seem completely unruffled

23:39

by what's happening around them. Remarkably

23:42

quickly, the class is back on

23:44

track, and soon it's James' big

23:46

moment. He and John play one

23:48

of their signature tunes, shot by

23:50

both sides by the Mancunian Band

23:52

magazine. Coming

24:04

up, what does the future hold

24:06

for James and other young people

24:08

like him as they head into

24:10

adulthood? So James started off on

24:12

the keyboard. He did picked up

24:14

a base. What's he in two

24:16

now? Yeah, he learned the keyboard

24:19

and that's just a skill that

24:21

sticks, you know, like musical skills

24:23

do. And then in lockdown... he

24:25

started picking up my acoustic guitar

24:27

and sort of playing little bass

24:29

lines out and stuff. I thought,

24:31

oh that's convenient. Because James' sister

24:33

Rosa plays the drums, she's a

24:35

brilliant drummer. So I thought, well

24:37

if I get him a bass,

24:40

I play the guitar, we got

24:42

a band, right? We got a

24:44

trio, and there's nothing else to

24:46

do. You're not really allowed out

24:48

of your house. So I have,

24:50

I sent off for a hundred

24:52

quid, left-handed bass, he plays left-handed,

24:54

left-handed James. And we just started

24:56

playing left-handed, James. We just started

24:58

playing, you know. So we'll go

25:01

with a piano and play class

25:03

songs in the start of a

25:05

sort of pub pianist. It's not

25:07

like a piano recital. It's like

25:09

big chord, big chord, big chord.

25:11

But then the other thing is

25:13

we go walking every Sunday, he'll

25:15

walk in. And I can't quite

25:17

recall how this happened, but we

25:19

have a habit of going to

25:22

a village church, which everyone does.

25:24

Church is usually open just to

25:26

have a look, you know. And

25:28

between us we figured out how

25:30

to switch organs on. Sometimes they're

25:32

locked. you know, someone might have

25:34

a word, but we figured out

25:36

how to switch the organ on.

25:38

Can you imagine? Even in a

25:41

village church, an organ makes quite

25:43

a noise, right? So there was

25:45

James playing these beautifully incongruous things.

25:47

If you hear a water barn

25:49

in a village church in Northumbria,

25:51

it's quite an amazing sound. Or

25:53

stop me if you've heard this

25:55

one before, but the Smiths. We

25:59

said James is 18. now.

26:01

How are you feeling about

26:03

his future? That's a good

26:05

question. So adulthood, sort of

26:07

for kind of institutional reasons,

26:09

in other words, things to

26:11

do with provision, what your

26:13

child's going to do all

26:15

day, adulthood's a really difficult

26:17

thing in the context of

26:19

autism and autism and learning

26:21

disabilities, because James autism is

26:23

the kind of autism that

26:25

comes with some learning disabilities.

26:27

And society... is pretty hopeless

26:29

at understanding, let alone providing

26:31

for autistic adults and adults

26:34

with learning disabilities. It's hopeless.

26:36

We seem to have it

26:38

in our heads collectively as

26:40

a society that these are

26:42

things that apply only to

26:44

childhood. There's not much consciousness

26:46

really of what it is

26:48

to be an autistic adult,

26:50

let alone an autistic and

26:52

learning disabled adult. So it's

26:54

another great... It's another kind

26:56

of cause of worry, you

26:58

know, the worry comes back,

27:00

this sense of what we're

27:02

going to do. Having said

27:04

that, James will be in

27:06

full-time education, I think in

27:09

all likelihood, until his early

27:11

20s, the system is kind

27:13

of set up for that.

27:15

But then you have to

27:17

start thinking really creatively and

27:19

probably being as pushy as

27:21

we were the first time

27:23

in trying to find... some

27:25

good provision that enables James

27:27

to fulfill his potential and

27:29

to do stimulating interesting things

27:31

all day. I don't want

27:33

to live in a world

27:35

where autistic and learn disabled

27:37

adults, you know, just watch

27:39

TV all day and get

27:41

taken to the seaside once

27:44

a month. I mean that's

27:46

this sort of lingering pre-war

27:48

almost Victorian vision of it

27:50

and it's wrong, you know,

27:52

but a great deal of

27:54

it and the bit that

27:56

gets even less attention is

27:58

about learning disabled people. And

28:00

I feel I feel like

28:02

really keenly because they're no

28:04

more or less complicated than

28:06

the rest of us and

28:08

our fellow human beings, you

28:10

know, our fellow adults and,

28:12

you know, the idea that

28:14

you're nothing unless you have

28:16

a paid job or a

28:19

set of educational qualifications, they

28:21

all get in the way,

28:23

I think, of empathy towards

28:25

all people, but learning disabled

28:27

people in particular. So that's

28:29

a kind of, that's a

28:31

sort of political with a

28:33

small P, sometimes a large

28:35

P, kind of passion that

28:37

I've acquired really in the

28:39

course of being James' dad.

28:41

And I'm not alone in

28:43

that at all, obviously. But

28:45

it's the bit we haven't

28:47

got near yet, really. And

28:49

I kind of have a

28:51

vision of what James should

28:53

be doing all day. Just

28:56

playing songs and listening to

28:58

music and recording things on

29:00

garage band. And reading Beatles

29:02

books and talking to me

29:04

about what's the best clash

29:06

album and all of that.

29:08

And I don't think, you

29:10

know, an advanced society should

29:12

be unable to provide those

29:14

things. I really don't. That

29:18

was John Harris, thanks to him,

29:20

to Ginny and to James and

29:22

Rosa for inviting us into their

29:24

home. I can't recommend John's book

29:26

highly enough. It's called Maybe I'm

29:28

Amazed and it's out now. If

29:30

you enjoy this episode and as

29:32

ever I really hope that you

29:34

did, please leave us a review.

29:36

We always really enjoy hearing what

29:38

you think of the show and

29:40

it also helps other people to

29:42

find us. Today's episode was produced

29:44

by Eleanor Biggs and presented by

29:46

me Helen Pitt. Sound design was

29:48

by Hannah Varl and the executive

29:50

producer was Elizabeth Cassin. We'll be

29:52

back on Monday. This

30:00

is the Guardian.