Wednesday witterings

Though I do not expect too many of this blog to be picked up by the fuzz (painful!) and this is slanted towards those detained in America I thought this amusing. There is, from my experience, not much difference from advice a UK defender might provide.

The report of the three young mums is still percolating into my brain. I had an old copper’s take on why this had come to publication now when the offspring were two or more years old. Why had our gallant media not felt it essential that we knew of this earlier? Monday night, all became clear. The BBC TV is doing a series about midwives and the dodgy Derby daughters appear in an episode down the line. In addition to the printed reports, TV news broadcast reports and links to the programme. To me, this exploits the kids even more than the sperm-donors who were involved. What a wonderful world this is turning into.

From there my mind went into the question of old and new methods of education. My main learning period ended about 1952 and was what I might call carrot and stick – except carrots were in short ration. I now accept that I had Aspergers Syndrome.

Back at that time, this condition was not known in England and I was just considered to be a nasty, aberrant, child. Such a person offended the sensibilities of parents and teachers and I received much special treatment to try to turn me into a ‘better person’. When the home and school treatment ended National Service took over.

I think this had a much greater effect upon me. I was totally immersed in the Army methodology. They received loads of conscripts on a regular basis and had the task of reducing everyone, from English graduates to Glasgow goons, down to a common level of unthinking zombie and then rebuilding them as clones of the Ideal Soldier. Whilst there was plenty of stick, there were also carrots. Inasmuch as it is possible, I was cured of AS. I retained some of the signs but these were recognised as variants. For almost all of my working life, my annual assessments contained the phrase, “does not suffer fools gladly”. I used to justify this on the grounds that I was not employed as the Master of an asylum and I made it clear that I did not suffer fools at all.

In my extended family are other AS individuals. One diagnosed officially and others I suspect. There seems to be no consensus as to how they should be treated. I was most impressed by the young lad with AS who went on Junior Master Mind. . I missed the final contest but he certainly achieved what he set out to do – AS kids do not have two heads.