There were other interviews with the local media in Reykjavík and an appearance on Iceland’s main breakfast television show; the interview also being conducted in Icelandic. On that programme, sirrý also appeared with me and was very complimentary about how well she thought I had done in the week that I had been studying the language. Sirrý also gave an interview in English for the documentary programme, in which she said that she had never before had a student like me and that I was ‘not human’! I was very grateful to her, not least because her help and encouragement had been invaluable to me.
Returning from Reykjavík at the close of filming the documentary I had the opportunity to reflect on just how far I had come. Only a few years before it would have seemed impossible that I would be able to live such an independent life: to fly to and travel around a country as huge as the United States, meet all sorts of people and visit all kinds of places and have the confidence to share my innermost thoughts and experiences with the world. The visit to Iceland too had been both amazing and moving and I had felt privileged that the Icelandic people had embraced me so warmly and enthusiastically. It was the strangest thing: the very same abilities that had set me apart from my peers as a child and adolescent, and isolated me from them, had actually helped me to connect with other people in adulthood and to make new friends. It had been an incredible few months for me, and it wasn’t over yet.
Early one morning the following spring I received a phone call telling me that I had been invited to appear on an upcoming edition of the Late Show with David Letterman. The arrangements had been made through Discovery’s Science Channel, which had broadcast Brainman for the first time several weeks before in the US. The reaction to the programme had been very positive, including a detailed review in the New York Times. Although I had never seen the Letterman show before, I had heard of it and knew that it was long-running and popular. The Science Channel’s team had agreed to cover the costs of the trip to New York for the day’s recording and a timetable had already been organised for me. There was only one catch: I had to fly out that afternoon as the interview was set to take place the next day.
It was fortunate that Neil was working from home and agreed to help me pack and take me to the airport. The necessary reservations were promptly booked online for me, so that all I needed to do was to get ready and go. It was a good thing that everything happened so suddenly, as I had no time to feel anxious and instead had to concentrate fully on routine matters, such as getting myself washed and dressed and my bag packed. In the car on the way to the airport, Neil tried to help me stay calm by telling me to enjoy the experience and just be myself.
The seat on the plane was big and comfortable and I was able to sleep for most of the time, which helped me a lot. Upon touchdown at JFK airport, I followed the other passengers out and through numerous passages until we arrived at the long queues for security and passport control. When it was my turn I walked up to the booth and handed over my passport. The man on the other side of the glass asked how long I was planning to stay in America and I replied: ‘Two days’. Surprised, he said ‘Only two days?’ and I nodded.
He looked steadily at me for a moment, then returned my passport and waved me through. After collecting my bag I walked on to arrivals and saw a man holding a sign with my name on it. I had been told that a driver would be waiting for me once I arrived at JFK, so I walked up to him and he took my bag and we went to the car, which was long and black and very shiny. I was driven to a hotel on Manhattan’s Central Park South and dropped off. Not long ago I would have been terrified at the idea of entering a hotel by myself and trying to find my way around all the different numbered rooms, trying not to end up desperately lost. By this time, though, I was so used to hotels that it wasn’t a problem. I collected my keys, walked up the stairs to my room and went to bed.
The next morning I met with a representative of the Science Channel team called Beth. It was her task to make sure I was dressed appropriately for the show (colours, nothing white and no stripes, for example) and to make me feel as calm and comfortable as possible ahead of the taping. We walked together down a series of long, busy streets to the Ed Sullivan Theater, a radio and television studio located at 1697 Broadway, and the Late Show’s home for the past twelve years. After receiving my security pass, I was greeted by the programme’s production staff and told the timetable for the day’s episode. I asked if I could be shown around the set, so that I would be comfortable with walking out onto it during the actual taping later that afternoon. It was only a short walk from backstage and a single step up to the main platform where I would shake David’s hand and sit down. The seat was large and soft, but the studio itself was very cold; I was told that David insists on a room temperature of just 58 degrees Fahrenheit. I just hoped I would not shiver too much on the show.
There was time for lunch back at the hotel before returning to the studio for the taping at 4.30 p.m. I was ushered into a small room from where I watched the opening segment of the show on a television set on the wall, before being taken to the makeup room. The bristles on the brush felt soft and soothing on my skin and I felt surprisingly relaxed as I was taken down to the set and shown where to stand while the show went to a commercial break. Then I heard David announce me to the audience and I received a signal from the floor manager to walk on. Following the preparations from earlier in the day, I remembered to keep my head up as I stepped out and shook David’s hand before sitting down. I reminded myself to maintain eye contact throughout the interview. The audience were far enough back from the lights on set that it wasn’t possible to see them, only hear them. This was good for me, because it gave me the feeling that David was the only person I was talking to. He started seriously, asking me about my autism and the seizures I had had as a child and even complimented me on my social skills, at which point the audience began to applaud. From that moment on I did not feel anxious at all. When I started to describe my pi record, David interrupted and said how much he liked pie and the audience laughed. He also asked me what day of the week he had been born on and gave me his date of birth: 12 April 1947. I told him that he had been born on a Saturday and that he would reach his sixty-fifth birthday in 2012 on a Thursday. The audience clapped loudly. As the interview came to a close, David shook my hand firmly and everyone backstage applauded as I walked past. Beth congratulated me and said how calm and collected I had appeared on the television screen. This experience showed me more than any other that I really was now able to make my way in the world, to do things for myself that most people take for granted such as travel at very short notice, stay alone at a hotel or walk a busy street without feeling overwhelmed by the different sights and sounds and smells all around. I felt elated by the thought that all my efforts had not been in vain, but had taken me to a point beyond my wildest dreams.
The Brainman documentary first aired in the UK in May 2005 and attracted record viewing figures. Since then, it has been shown in or sold to more than forty countries worldwide, from Switzerland to South Korea. I regularly receive emails and letters from individuals who have watched the programme and been touched or inspired by it, and it is exciting to think that my story has helped so many people.
The reaction of my family to the programme was also very positive. My father told me that he is very proud of what I have been able to accomplish. Since a recent fall left him partially disabled he has lived in specially-equipped accommodation, where he is able to receive constant medical care and support, near the family home. Neil and I drive up to London to visit him regularly. As he has got older, my father’s mental health has stabilised and he has even used his experiences to contribute articles to a local support group’s newsletter.
I did not always feel a strong emotional connection towards my parents or brothers and sisters when I was growing up, and did not at the time experience this as any kind of absence because they were simply not a part of my world. Things are different now: I am aware of how much my family love me and how m
uch they have done for me over the years, and as I have got older the relationship between myself and my family has continued to improve. I think falling in love helped me to come a lot closer to all my feelings, not just for Neil but also for my family and friends, and to accept them. I have a good relationship with my mother; we talk on the phone regularly and I enjoy our conversations. She continues to play a very important and supportive role in my life, encouraging and reassuring me as she has always done.
Most of my brothers and sisters are now young adults, like me. I didn’t mix much with them as a child, but as adults we have gradually grown a lot closer and I have learned a lot more about each of them. The sibling closest to me in age, my brother Lee, works as a railway supervisor and is something of a computer addict. My mother complains that he spends all of his time when he is not working sitting in front of a computer screen.
My sister Claire is in her final year at university in York studying English Literature and Philosophy. Like me, she has a strong interest in words and language and is planning to become a schoolteacher after completing her education.
Steven, my second brother, continues to require a lot of help from the family because of his Asperger’s. He takes medication for depression, which is a common issue for individuals on the autistic spectrum. Like me, he walks in circles whenever he is thinking very deeply about something; there is even a well-trodden circle in my family’s garden where he has walked round and round so often. Steven is a keen musician with a particular fondness for stringed instruments. He has taught himself to play both the guitar and the Greek lute. He also has an encyclopaedic knowledge of his favourite music group, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Sometimes my parents complain about Steven’s dress sense, because he wears very bright colours (orange shoes, for example) and changes his hairstyle from week to week. I don’t believe that they need to worry, because I think he is still working out who he is and trying out different ways of becoming more comfortable with the world around him. I know from my own experience that this process can take time. Steven does volunteer work at a local charity shop and his current obsession is for Triops, small crustaceans that are believed to be the oldest living animal species in the world. He is a very gentle and caring person, and I am proud of him and very hopeful about his future.
Then there is my brother Paul, who is a year younger than Steven and works as a gardener. He has a wide knowledge of plants: when to plant them, where to situate them in the garden, what type of soil each requires, how much sun each plant needs and so on. Whenever I need any advice for my garden, I always know to ask Paul.
The twins are all grown-up, too: Maria, the older by ten minutes, recently passed all her GCSEs with straight As. Like Claire she is a real bookworm and spends a lot of her time reading. Natasha has just given birth to a son, Matthew, making me an uncle for the first time. I have a photo of my nephew on the dresser in my kitchen. Looking at it helps to remind me of the miracles of life and love.
Finally there are my youngest siblings, my sisters Anna-Marie and Shelley. Both are now busy, noisy teenagers. Shelley shares my love of books and especially likes the works of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters.
Visits to my family are always happy experiences for me. I feel closer to each of them now than I ever could have done growing up. Looking back, I am extremely grateful to them for all the love they have given me and continue to give me. Their support has been a very big reason for any of the success I have had in my life. With every visit, I look forward to our discussions on books and words (and often, inevitably, the Red Hot Chilli Peppers) and to hearing about their experiences and their plans and dreams for the future. I feel truly honoured to be a part of their lives.
I spend most days at home. It is here that I feel most calm, comfortable and secure, because there is order and routine all around me. In the mornings, I always brush my teeth before my shower. I brush each tooth individually and rinse my mouth out afterwards with water. When I wash, I use natural oils – tea tree and jojoba – to help keep my skin clean and soft, as soap is too drying and makes me itch. For breakfast I eat porridge; I love the feel of the texture of the oats on my tongue. I drink cups of warm tea with skimmed milk, my favourite drink, throughout the day.
I cook regularly, because it is a tactile experience that helps me to relax. A recipe is like a mathematical sum or equation; the product (whether a cake or a casserole) is the sum of its parts. The ingredients in a recipe have relationships to each other; if you halve or double one ingredient, you have to remember to halve or double the others too. As an example, here is a basic recipe for a sponge cake that serves six:
6 eggs
340g self-raising flour
340g butter
340g caster sugar
Which can also be written in this way:
6 eggs + 340g self-raising flour + 340g butter + 340g caster sugar = cake (for 6)
To make the cake for three people, instead of six, I change the product of the sum to: cake (for 3/6); which is the same as , so I halve each ingredient amount in the sum (3 eggs, 170g flour … etc) to arrive at the new product.
I make a lot of the food that we eat at home using simple recipes I collect from books or family and friends. We bake our own bread and make our own peanut butter for lunchtime sandwiches. Sometimes I make oat milk or yoghurt to snack on. We also make a tasty, low-fat pastry for pies that we fill using apples from the fruit trees in our garden. Neil uses some of the crop to make fresh cider. Neil often helps me in the kitchen and working together on a recipe becomes an opportunity for me to practise my ability to cooperate and communicate effectively as part of a team effort.
The garden also has a large vegetable patch where we grow onions, peas, potatoes, tomatoes, cabbages, lettuces and herbs such as mint, rosemary and sage. I enjoy working in the garden because of the quiet and fresh air and warm sun and because I like to listen to birds singing and watch the insects crawling carefully around the trees and plants. Gardening provides good exercise and is relaxing, requires patience and dedication and helps me feel a greater connection with the world around me.
There is a strong sense of calm and contentment that comes from living in a more self-sufficient way. A soup made from freshly picked homegrown tomatoes is far tastier than anything bought in a shop. My friends really like the personalised birthday cards I make for them from plain cardboard, a pencil and some coloured crayons. Our grocery bills are low, because I plan all our meals weeks in advance and set a budget before we go shopping. Around one third of food grown for consumption in the UK ends up being thrown away, in part because many people buy more than they need.
For a while we shopped each week at our local supermarket, as many people do. However, I would regularly switch off and become anxious and uncommunicative because of the size of the store, the large numbers of shoppers and the amount of stimuli around me. Supermarkets are also often overheated, which is a problem for me because my skin can become itchy and uncomfortable when I feel too warm. Then there are the flickering, fluorescent lights that hurt my eyes. The solution was to go instead to smaller, local shops, which are much more comfortable for me to use, are often less expensive to shop in and support small businesses in our community.
When we go shopping, Neil always drives us because I cannot drive. I have taken my practical test twice in the past, after many lessons, and failed both times. People on the autistic spectrum often need extra experience, practice and concentration when learning to drive. This is because we tend not to have good spatial skills which are necessary when driving a road vehicle. Another difficulty is judging how other road users might behave and understanding that not all drivers obey all the rules all of the time. Fortunately, Neil does not mind doing the driving for both of us.
I have several plans for the future. One is to continue to help charities, such as the National Autistic Society and the National Society for Epilepsy, that are important to me. When I give a talk on behalf of a charity in front of lots
of people I sit or stand in such a way as to be able to see Neil in the audience, and I imagine that I’m talking just to him. Then I don’t feel so nervous.
I also plan to continue working with scientists and researchers to find out more about my brain and how exactly it works. Following my pi record and the Brainman documentary I was inundated with requests to study me from scientists from all over the world. In 2004 I met the world’s foremost expert in savant syndrome, Dr Darold Treffert, in Wisconsin in the USA. It was during this meeting that I was told that I matched the condition’s diagnostic criteria. Since then, I have contributed regularly to various scientific research projects. Here are two examples of recent studies:
In 2004, Professor Daniel Bor of the Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit in Cambridge performed an analysis of my digit span – the ability to process sequential numerical information and recall it in the correct order. For each part of the test I was seated in front of a computer screen onto which sequences of numbers were displayed one at a time at a rate of a digit per half-second. After each sequence I was asked to type the numbers into the computer. My recorded digit span was 12 digits, twice the normal range of 5–7 digits. When the computer displayed numbers that had been randomly coloured, to see if they interfered with my synaesthesia, my performance dropped to between 10–11 digits. Professor Bor said that he had never tested anyone before with a digit span above 9 and that my score was extremely rare.
Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant Page 20
