Childhood and Asperger’s

I was born in Huddersfield, and went to primary school in Huddersfield, Kirkheaton and Mirfield.

I used to read a lot as a child, maybe because I was an awkward child, and my mother’s punishment was to send me to my room. I cannot remember any of my five siblings being sent to their rooms, so that shows something, but I’m not sure what.

In the boys’ bedroom was the family bookcase. I spent my time there reading, but not the fiction, I preferred to read the encyclopedias. Not only when I was being punished, but I also chose to read. I remember being a member of the local library too, and every few weeks would return books unread. The children’s section was full of fiction, and I could never get my head around fiction. With two exceptions, SF and fact based stories, usually the story behind someone I had read about in encyclopedias. Then there’s biography, which I usually found dry, and autobiography, which I find far more interesting. I still feel the same way.

When I was 10, my school teacher recommended that I go to see a child psychologist. I came back as normal, but this was 1964, a diagnosis for Asperger’s syndrome would not be available for another 20 years. Mum has told me that she was angry with this, as she thought me the most intelligent of my brothers and sisters. Sorry to boast here. Less than two years later I went to the Secondary Modern School, unlike my elder brother, who was at the grammar school.

My interaction with toys was not very good. I was always very interested in how things work and my interest led me to disassembling toys ti order to see how they worked. Not just my own, but also those of friends at their homes. No damage was ever intended, but I became Steven, destroyer of toys.

My memories of secondary school, and after O levels, of Huddersfield Technical College, is that of being bullied. Either that or being destructive. The bullying because I did never fit in with others. Destructiveness because of my desire to fit in meant that any group of my age I was in I willing to do anything. Sometimes things they would not do themselves. Then after my reluctant delinquency had got a laugh, the relationship was terminated. Fortunately for me I was never caught.