Not Stupid (10 page)

My first television appearance had been when I was just nine years old. I was dancing on a programme hosted by the late Jess Yates. Now, however, I had an important message to get across. I was desperate to promote our efforts regarding our school and, although I was appearing on television on a reasonably regular basis to do so, I have to say I found each experience rather nerve-racking, particularly if the interview was being transmitted live.

Many a time I felt the butterflies in my stomach as the cameras began to roll. I remember that, after completing my very first interview on the BBC, I telephoned my mum to see what she thought of it, but she’d missed it. At first I was even wondering if there would be anyone out there who would be interested in anything I had to say in any case, but those doubts were soon dispelled by the huge amount of feedback and support I received after each interview. Usually when I spoke on air the time seemed to fly past so quickly and I was often left thinking, If only I’d mentioned this, or Why didn’t I mention that?

The publicity generated by our media campaign prompted a
Granada Television producer to get in touch. Would it be OK for him to visit us as part of a research project? The aim was to eventually produce a television drama starring the actor Robson Green about a couple who split up because of the pressures they were under while caring for their five-year-old autistic son. We were happy to agree to this request, thinking it would be a good way to highlight how autism and Asperger Syndrome affect not only sufferers but their families as well. Patrick was really happy when the producer arrived, and promptly began climbing all over him as he spent the best part of the day with us. He was particularly fascinated by the producer’s Southern accent and got on really well with him.

We had been looking forward to seeing the finished drama and had expected to have been invited to its première but were disappointed not to have been. Nevertheless, it was a good drama, which showed very clearly some of the pressures that often divide the parents of autistic children, how they sometimes look to blame each other or someone else for the predicament they’ve found themselves in, and I know it rang a few bells with several of the members of HACS.

Meanwhile, I also appeared on Sky TV’s programme
Why
Me
?, a chat show that, this time, was about raising the awareness of Asperger Syndrome following a wave of press interest in autism-related stories. During the interview I chatted to Dr Rosemary Waring and, afterwards, several parents wrote to me to express their support.

I
t was an anxious wait but when I received the telephone call to say the keys to the school were available to us, I could hardly get down to Hillingdon Civic Centre quickly enough! I hurriedly got Patrick and Angelo into the car and went off straightaway to collect the keys. Needless to say, I was very excited, ecstatic, even though Patrick and Angelo had no idea what all the fuss was about. Anyway, any thoughts of school in Patrick’s mind were full of negativity. To make it even more special, it was 5 January, 1999, Patrick’s ninth birthday!

At last I had the keys in my hand. And then it hit me: I couldn’t help thinking, What now? I drove straight to the school and let myself in. Bloody hell! I thought. Whatever have we let ourselves in for? Everything’s in such a state. We’re going to need a lot of help here.

Meanwhile, Angelo had seen fit to run off and explore. At first I wasn’t too concerned, as everywhere had been locked up, but I was dismayed to find he’d discovered the climbing bars in
the main hall and had instantly clambered right up to the top, and was balanced precariously on a tiny wooden platform many feet up from the floor with nothing to break his fall should he have slipped.

Seeing him standing there so carefree absolutely horrified me. One false move and that would have been it for him, yet there was no way I could leave to get help. I knew I had to climb up there after him – and I really hate heights. It was a
nerve-racking
climb but, fortunately, after some negotiation, my powers of persuasion saw Angelo safely back on terra firma. Not the best of starts, by any means!

Then I rang everyone I could think of to let them know the news – we were in business. Further exploration of the school brought home to me just how much work would be required to bring it into a serviceable condition and, I must admit, it was pretty daunting.

But there was no way I would accept failure. Firmly in my mind was the comment made by one councillor while we were trying to secure the school. He’d said he reckoned we’d be handing the property back to the council within six months. ‘What do you know about running a school?’ he’d asked. ‘You won’t be able to hack it.’ He may not have known it at the time, but he’d just made me even more determined to make a success of the project.

Sean didn’t arrive at the school until the evening. Alex was with him. After looking around the whole premises we all gathered around to discuss the best way forward, excitedly chatting while, at the same time, wondering what on earth we’d let ourselves in for!

Up until the point we received the keys for the school, Alex had been working for a warehouse company but, such was the scale of the task ahead of us, he decided to quit his job and work for us full-time as project manager. He would be the only one among us at the time to receive a wage, but this was to be a vital full-time role and we had already budgeted for such expenses with our bank loan.

Once appointed, Alex threw himself wholeheartedly into the project and, thanks to him, the organisation of the scheduled work over the forthcoming months went, largely, very smoothly. His enthusiasm for the task before him was matched only by his humour. I have to say he’s a lovely man who likes nothing more than to have a jolly good natter!

It was clear that one of our priorities would have to be the school’s flat roof, which was leaking like a sieve in places, but that was obviously going to cost a huge amount of money. Further inspections saw us quoted figures in excess of
£
100,000. We knew this would be a difficult sum to raise and considered having the work done in sections to spread the cost. One thing was for sure: the work couldn’t be ignored, as we had rapidly-filling buckets all over the place every time it rained.

It was all hands on deck in the race against time to get the school up and running. Sean, Alex and I began the painting – with Sean ending up with more paint in his hair than on the ceiling! However, it soon became obvious we would need a lot more help if we were to have any chance of completing the project in time. We established a core workforce of seven or eight of us, but we also had a lot of occasional volunteers,
including parents, brothers and sisters and grandparents of children who were hoping to get into the school.

One parent, whose daughter had autism, was an electrician and he took responsibility for the huge task of sorting out all the wiring at the school; and another grandparent, also an electrician, still helps us to this day. Another parent with an autistic son became the maintenance manager.

We’ve since become like one big family.

People would come in to help clean up, paint and so on. Prince’s Trust volunteers cleared the area of old trees and paving slabs, while Middlesex Community Service would bring along people who had to work in the community on Saturdays. Alex and I would be on site to monitor what was going on.

Surprisingly, in spite of being made to come along to help out, many of the offenders, once their penance had been paid, still chose to come back to assist in any way they could, perhaps because of the camaraderie among our volunteer workforce. One lady, a drink-driver, had enjoyed working at the school so much that, a few months later, when she reoffended, she even asked if she could return to our school to serve her time. And she did!

I decided to ring around as many newspapers as I could think of to drum up support. I started with our local newspaper, the
Uxbridge Gazette
, and spoke to a reporter, Barbara Fisher, who has, over the past few years, been a huge supporter and also become a good friend. Barbara gave me several tips so far as dealing with the press was concerned. She advised me to keep all my correspondence short and sweet – they like conciseness – and suggested sending in letters on coloured paper so they
would stand out among all the others received each day in the majority of newsrooms. It turned out to be very good advice.

We were very fortunate that our project captured the imagination of so many people and companies willing to help us along the way. When we acquired the school, the NatWest bank donated a whole load of toys, and David Kamsler, from the Link charity, which is based in Basingstoke, gave us lots of chairs and tables that had been donated to his charity at the end of the tax year when the companies renew their fittings and fixtures.

David also provided us with a huge number of large, heavy, blue carpet tiles, enough to cover most of the floor space at the school. Alex and Sean and I borrowed a couple of knackered old vans and drove down to Basingstoke to collect them from the company where they were situated. We had to lift them from the floors and load them into the vans. Although they were almost brand-new, there was a fault with them that meant the rubber backs were not quite as good as they might have been. That said, they were certainly good enough for our purposes. The vans really struggled on the way back to Hillingdon, such was the weight of the loads, and then we had to go back for more! We covered the classrooms and corridors, the staffroom as well.

The Pavilions Shopping Centre in Uxbridge chose the school as its charity for the Millennium, and four schools in South Harrow donated nearly-new furniture, including 90 desks. British Airways donated older-style PCs, office furniture, blankets for the relaxation room and a
£
5,000 cheque after they’d seen a number of newspaper articles. And we held jumble sales.

People would even leave things outside the school doors that they assumed would be useful to us – toys, computers, books, tables, etc. Some items had notes attached to them with messages such as, ‘This is for the autistic children and the autistic lady!’ Sometimes there were items we didn’t really need but we took them to jumble sales and got money for them, so they weren’t wasted.

Sixty British Airports Authority staff from Heathrow Airport helped to create a daily-skills living room and the company also donated
£
5,000 to help equip it. The room was converted into a classroom equipped with a kitchen, dining room and living area where the children could learn how to cope with everyday life. The American School, an independent private school nearby, which had had some autistic pupils in the past, gave us lots of books.

Although there was a lot of hard work to do, we also had times when we had a laugh. Outside there was grass everywhere, growing out of control. Alex, wandering around, found an enormous petrol motor mower that had been left in the grounds but we had no idea whether it would still work. We decided to give it a try. To our surprise it started and I decided to make a start on cutting the grass. Unfortunately, as I let out the clutch it roared off, much to Alex and Sean’s amusement. It was so powerful it just lifted up and dragged me along behind it! Alex said he just wished he’d had a camera with him at the time.

Obviously, all this work at the school took time and, without Patrick and Angelo being in appropriate places of education, Sean and I would sometimes need to bring them
along with us. For that reason it was important we could leave them securely while we worked and we had to ensure all the doors were locked so they didn’t wander off while we were otherwise occupied. We made arrangements for the boys to receive their home tuition at the school and set up a classroom specifically for them to give them the opportunity to get used to their new surroundings.

Unfortunately, the burglar alarm used to go off an awful lot. Alex, Sean and I were the callouts, since we didn’t have the money to employ security staff at the time. We also used to get false alarms and later we discovered that the alarm was faulty, which wasn’t much fun when you consider it would often sound off at about 2 a.m.

Soon after we’d had a washing machine and fridge delivered, the alarm went off again, so Sean, Alex and I arrived at the school late at night to find a window had been smashed at the back of the premises. Then Sean saw two guys running off with the washing machine, so he jumped over the fence and gave chase. Seeing this big guy screaming and charging towards them, they sensibly dropped the washing machine and ran for it. Later, in a lane at the back of the school, a large amount of property was found awaiting collection, stuff that had been stolen from the school and other properties nearby. We got the washing machine back but it had been badly dented. Fortunately, though, the people who donated it to us in the first place replaced it.

It was nerve-racking to come out at the dead of night to a deserted school, not knowing who or what we might find. Sometimes, as we patrolled the premises, Sean would walk
around holding a truncheon, though I’d warn him not to hit anyone with it because such is the law of the land that it probably would have been Sean who would have got into trouble rather than an intruder. Other times, Sean would go around on his own, which really worried me.

The break-ins highlighted the need for better security and, again, volunteers in the form of Waterside Parkland’s manager Richard Wassell and his team came to the rescue to supply us with extra fencing and lighting. The most vulnerable part of the premises was the fence at the back of the grounds, which backed onto a field. This had to be heightened but we couldn’t risk putting any spikes on the top because autistic children are renowned for climbing and we could not afford to risk their safety.

Another unexpected problem arose when we began receiving mail addressed to Moorcroft School that was intended for the previous occupants of the site. We hadn’t changed the name because the former occupants had moved on but, although they were no longer based on our Moorcroft site, they had retained their school’s name elsewhere. Obviously, this was a situation that needed to be urgently addressed to avoid any confusion. We decided to rename our school and held a meeting to decide upon it. After putting our heads together we came up with Hillingdon Manor School, which didn’t take too much imagination owing to the fact that it is situated in Hillingdon and is adjacent to a manor house!

Of course, having the premises at last was only the beginning of a very long road we had to travel down. After all, what use
is a school without any teachers? Bearing in mind this was hardly our field of expertise, we knew we had to bring in a head teacher first of all, who would be responsible for advising us on the number and calibre of staff required to enable the school to function effectively.

Policies and procedures would need to be put in place before any other appointments could be made, so the appointment of a head teacher became paramount – but how do you go about getting a headteacher for a school that is falling apart, with no pupils or staff?

It was hardly an attractive proposal, but I’d made a few contacts at Christina Bertolucci’s workshops and I was aware of
The Times Educational Supplement
, which regularly carries advertisements for teaching professionals. I popped into our local branch of W H Smith, bought a copy and studied the way the advertisements were laid out in the situations-vacant columns. Then I noticed the paper carried a special-needs section, which also featured a good number of advertisements.

Looking at the existing advertisements, I got an idea of how our own advertisement should appear and what kind of requirements we should highlight. I was shocked, however, when I looked at the price we’d be required to pay for our advertisement:
£
600. Just think what we could have repaired with that sort of money!

We had set aside a certain amount of money from our bank loan to pay staff upon opening but, obviously, we needed to be able to sustain ourselves financially afterwards. We reckoned statementing fees would go some way towards helping out on that front.

And so it was that we put together the following advertisement:

We soon received some replies, but there were some very strange or wacky applicants. One even wrote to us on some writing paper with the logo from the kids’ TV programme
Rainbow
on the top of it!