Graham: Interview 03

No a good example is when we went to the Norfolk Broads when we were about…I must have been about 15, 16 I think and we’d got there and Richard had forgotten one of his consoles. And he screamed and shouted and wouldn’t get on the boat. And then my parents eventually managed to, because my dad was saying, well I’m going to have to drive home like three hours, four hours and go and get it. And my mum was like, no, no, no. We managed to reason with him, that they went and bought him something at a shop to kind of calm him down. And I remember that, and that was like a perfect example in my recent memory of like when things have been difficult and then you have to just kind of reason with him, which is normally quite difficult to reason with him. But yes... but something like that I wouldn’t go home and like talk to my mates in depth about it or anything at all.

 Yeah, my friends have actually been incredibly supportive around it. I mean when I was younger I didn’t go blabbing it about and stuff. I didn’t like... there was certain people, they wouldn’t make comments deliberately about him, but I didn’t like it when people made jokes about autistic people as such when I was younger. That used to make me quite angry, and had quite a few scuffles as a result of it and things, but no one would be directly like horrible about it, and I was never really embarrassed to talk about it. It’s not like one of those situations where you don’t want anyone to know. And yes, no one really thought anything different of it. My friends they’ve been amazing, the ones who live round here. And they love him. He gets on so well with them, and he still even Facebooks with some of them and exchange computer games with them and stuff, so my friends have, yeah they’ve been great with him and stuff. And I’m still very open about talking about it. It’s nothing I’d shy away from talking about at all. Something I’m quite proud of having a brother and I’m quite happy that I’ve looked after him and things. Very open about it I’d say.

Yes. Yes, that’s the one thing that would worry me. I think mum and dad are in control of what’s going on and stuff and they’re very up on where he’s going to be and stuff but I’d worry about his long term future. I mean I know I’ll take over guardianship when they pass on. I wouldn’t know at the moment where that would leave me, because, I mean I’d assume he’d be in permanent care at that time or something. But it more ignorant, the fact that I don’t really know what level he’d going to be at when he’s older. I mean I know he’s not going to be able to live on his own, without some form of person looking over him or in some form of community. But again that’s because I’m not really sure where he’s going to be. But that does worry me a bit. Not that I don’t have trust in the National Autistic Society and everything, it’s just more, I wouldn’t know where he’s going to be, so …

Well what, through my whole life really? I don’t really know where to start. There’s been a lot of good and bad times I’d say. It’s something that I wouldn’t want to change if I could go back and change and have a different brother as such. But yes, I mean being with Richy is amazing, I think, it’s a different experience to what you can get normally as having a brother. It’s... because he’s just constantly there, he almost needs your help, so he’s very reliant on you. It really means that you build a strong relationship I’d say. When my parents go away, as in, my Grandma wouldn’t really like looking after him without me being there, for example. So again, growing up with him, I know him kind of in and out in that sense. I know exactly how to wind him up when I want to and how to calm him down when he needs to calm down and things so...So that’s been a nice thing I’d say, where I know that a lot of people don’t, a lot of my friends don’t have a good relationships at all with their brother. Even though they can still go down the pub and have a drink. I’d say, I mean I can’t, well maybe more so recently it’s been possible to do that, but I haven’t been able to grow up and share certain things with him, like talking about girls and that, but at the same time we’ve been able to have different kind of relationship experiences together, which I think is just as important in certain ways. 

Well that’s the one thing that I think I miss not having a normal brother where I can’t talk to him about any problems I have. Which I know like which is nice that, like my ex-girlfriend like is really good friends with her sister. They would go out together and they would like always talk to each other first if there was any issues and stuff. And that’s the one thing I do really think that I missed out on. In that sense though, I feel like an only child in certain aspects, when it’s like, when people talk about having brothers and sisters and I will say, “Well I’ve got an autistic brother.” And it’s kind of like a half way relationship where there’s like half of having a brother I’ve missed out on, but there’s still the other half that’s fine. But as I said before there’s lots that’s made up for it and I wouldn’t change it. But that would be the one difficult thing.