Editor’s Notes
Nick Hornby is the author of six novels, most recently Juliet, Naked, and a couple of works of non-fiction, including Fever Pitch. He wrote the screenplay for the Oscar-nominated film An Education.
Giles Smith wrote the memoir Lost in Music. There are two fine collections of his sports journalism: Midnight in the Garden of Evel Knievel and We Need to Talk about Kevin Keegan.
Roddy Doyle wrote, among many other things, the Barrytown trilogy: The Commitments, The Snapper and The Van. His most recent book is a collection of stories entitled Bullfighting.
Melissa Bank is the author of The Girls’ Guide to Hunting and Fishing and The Wonder Spot.
Irvine Welsh is the author of Trainspotting and, most recently, Crime.
Zadie Smith has written three novels: White Teeth, The Autograph Man and On Beauty, which won the Orange Prize for Fiction.
Dave Eggers is the founder of McSweeney’s and the 826 writing centres in the US. He is the author of, among other books, A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius and What is the What, and he co-wrote the screenplays for the films Where the Wild Things Are and Away We Go.
Colin Firth is, to date, the only contributor to this collection who has won an Oscar for best performance by an actor in a leading role.
Helen Fielding is the author of Bridget Jones’s Diary. Her – or rather, her character’s – admiration for Colin Firth is well documented.
John O’ Farrell is the author of Things Can Only Get Better and, most recently, An Utterly Exasperated History of Modern Britain. He went to the same school as the editor, funnily enough.
Robert Harris is the editor’s brother-in-law. He is the author of eight novels, including Fatherland and The Ghost, which was adapted for film by the author and Roman Polanski.
Patrick Marber is a playwright (Closer, Dealer’s Choice) and screenwriter. His adaptation of Zoë Heller’s novel Notes on a Scandal was nominated for an Oscar. He is a director of Lewes F.C.
Ambitious about Autism and TreeHouse School
Ambitious about Autism is the national charity for children and young people with autism. We provide information, training and support, run a range of high-quality services including the pioneering TreeHouse School and campaign to make the ordinary possible for children and young people with autism.
Ambitious about Autism is the proud home of TreeHouse School.
TreeHouse School is a unique school, which was founded in 1997 by a group of parents who knew that education was the key to transforming the lives of children and young people with autism, and the lives of their families. From an initial four pupils the school has grown to over eighty pupils. TreeHouse School gives children and young people with autism the specialist, intensive and integrated education they need to learn, thrive and achieve.
The future aims of Ambitious about Autism are to grow and develop TreeHouse School as part of a wider range of services for children and young people with autism. To increase awareness and understanding of autism and evidence the needs of children and young people with autism and give them, and their families, a voice. Also it aims to continue to influence policy development and ensure that the needs of children and young people are heard and considered at every stage.
If you would like more information, or would like to make a donation, please visit the website:
AmbitiousaboutAutism.org.uk.
Autism has a huge impact on family life – home was a living nightmare for Donna and Paul after their son Daniel was diagnosed. Donna tells how TreeHouse helped bring laughter back into their family:
Daniel is six, an oldest child (his sisters are Jamey, three, and Billie-Jade, two). We were delighted by Daniel’s early progress. At twenty months he was affectionate, sociable and bright with a good understanding of language, constructing simple sentences, and mixing well with other children.
The first problems started soon after Daniel’s second birthday. He went to bed fine, and when he woke all his speech and understanding had gone. Our life became a living nightmare. Daniel would cry most of the day, was hyperactive, and threw things around the room. He lost all eye contact and didn’t recognize his family. When I tried to cuddle Daniel he would bite, kick and scream. It would take both of us to restrain him for the simplest tasks like dressing.
I now know that on that night in August 1996, Daniel had a severe convulsion. In January 1997 they told me that he had autism, and to go home and take one day at a time. No cure. No behaviour programme. No future. But most of all, no hope.
At the time Daniel was in a mainstream nursery, happy living in his own world and mostly left alone in repetitive play. He certainly wasn’t progressing. Life at home just got worse and worse. We had no social life, very little sleep and our daughter Jamey started to copy Daniel’s behaviour. I met some mums who were running ABA home programmes. I knew Daniel would benefit from 1:1 therapy, and felt very sad because we lacked the finances and space – we live in a two-bedroom council flat. I did make some progress with Daniel by copying the techniques used on videos lent to me. I managed about ten hours a week but knew he needed much more. Then I read an article about an ABA school, TreeHouse. It had one adult for every child, and Daniel would be sitting at a table learning for most of the day. He desperately needed that to regain his lost skills.
Daniel started at TreeHouse in January 1999, and very quickly we felt we had our little boy back. Once again he was calm, happy, affectionate. He has his own unique sense of humour. He can colour, shape, and match twenty words to pictures, do simple drawings, play independently on the computer and make simple sentences using pictures. He points and does actions to all his favourite nursery rhymes. He can follow complex instructions such as ‘pour your juice and drink it’. He now has about forty spoken words, and very good understanding and has been toilet-trained. He just loves going to school every day.
Family life is so much easier for us. I have the energy to give fun time to my daughters, and there’s laughter in the home again. The biggest reward by far is seeing Daniel and Jamey play together. When they kiss and cuddle I cry tears of joy; even watching them fight makes me happy. There was a time when he wouldn’t even be in the same room as her.
Life is really great now. We still have good and bad days, but we have a method – ABA – that really works; encouraging and praising the behaviour that’s good, and ignoring the behaviour we don’t want. Life is really great now.
Acknowledgements
Thanks to Tony Lacey, Joanna Prior, Emma Noel, Martin Bryant and all the staff at Penguin; Caroline Dawnay, Annabel Hardman, Nicki Kennedy, Jessica Buckman and the staff of ILA; Emma Thompson, Lorrie Moore and JK Rowling; Christine Asbury and everyone at TreeHouse.
PENGUIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published by Penguin Books 2000
Reissued in this edition 2011
Copyright © for this collection, Penguin Books, 2000
Copyright © Introduction, Nick Hornby 2000
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Copyrights © for individual stories: ‘PMQ’, Robert Harris 2000; ‘The Wonder Spot’, Melissa Bank 2000; ‘Last Requsts’, Giles Smith 2000; ‘Peter Shelley’, Patrick Marber 2000; ‘The Department of Nothing’, Colin Firth 2000; ‘I’m the Only One’, Zadie Smith 2000; ‘NippleJesus’, Nick Hornby 2000; ‘After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned’, Dave Eggers 2000; ‘Luckybitch’, Helen Fielding 2000; ‘The Slave’, Roddy Doyle 2000; ‘Catholic Guilt (You Know You Love It)’, Irvine Welsh 2000; ‘Walking into the Wind’, John O’Farrell 2000.
All rights reserved
The moral right of the authors has been asserted
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser
ISBN: 978-0-24-195946-6
* mise (‘mish-eh’) – me.
* oíche mhaith (‘ee-heh wah’) – good night.
† cúpla focail (‘coop-la fuck-ill’) – a few words.
Nick Hornby, Speaking With the Angel
(Series: # )
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