Bobby wants his story to be heard after facing an unfair side of the society that mishandled his autism.
He brushes it off with 2Shades as he shares how his artistic expression gave him life.
Bobby said, “I have written a book called ‘My world, in my words’. It’s a book which explains my life growing up with autism before asking people about their thoughts on autism, then at the end I have a crazy script which shows the audience my imagination through a crazy love story.
It is important for me to share my experience of living with autism to support people to understand my thinking processes and the difficulties individuals with autism can face in mainstream society.”
For me personally, as a journalist and more importantly, a human being, I felt a bit sad hearing about the struggles Bobby had to face in school.
Not all teachers in the education sector are equipped to understand neurodiverse children. In Bobby’s experience, he was forced to move schools quite often from feeling threatened to just learn everybody else.
Bobby said, “When I went to my first secondary school I had to go to a hall and do an exam for a week in front of everyone, I had panic attacks and I used to run out crying. None of the teachers understood, they just thought I was a naughty child, they moved me from year 4 work to year 7 work so no one read anything about me in my reports from school.
I felt like I was getting bullied by more staff than students and I used to come home crying like I didn’t want to be here anymore.”
As Bobby was narrating his life to me, I could see how much the people in his life have rushed him to adjust to a world that apparently knows what “normal behaviour” means.
I wanted to reach into my laptop and give him a big hug for the kind of injustices he had to endure as a child.
It’s not about being sympathetic towards his hard life, I felt his pain of being treated as a misfit for being different in a controlled education system.
Bobby said, “I used to get detention for not doing my own shoelace you know? Back then I couldn’t even do my own shoelace, so how could I even tie it? And the homework as well, it was all so hard, I had no support and I wasn’t happy with myself.
However, when I was in year 8, I got diagnosed with autism and didn’t really understand what it meant till I went to an autism school.”
He raised an important point here, he said that autism schools are lovely to feel supported but they felt a bit laidback to him.
The difficulty isn’t about learning the subjects sometimes, it just takes a good teacher to make a difference. To feel included and safe.
Every child has a few subjects they’re either really good at or fail in, but that doesn’t mean they need to tagged as an outcast.
Bobby said, “Why can’t there be a room just for autistic children in secondary school so they can study on their own?” and I agreed because all it takes is a compassionate teacher who understands different learning capabilities.
Bobby had a few more disappointments in his college life but he met an angel in disguise in the form of a music teacher called Carl Pemberton.
Carl encouraged Bobby to write a book about his life story and also explore songwriting as a way to express his emotions.
They’ve collaborated on a few songs together and published videos on YouTube, hoping to reach a wider audience as time passes.
He also performed with his friend, Beth Miller, in the Autism’s Got Talent show 2023, which took place in the north east of England. The show was organised by superwoman/autism activist, Dr. Anna Kennedy OBE who relentlessly advocates for autism awareness and rights.
Bobby said, “Music has always been a big part of my life. When my dear friend Ziggy passed away, I didn’t know how to process those emotions. For people with autism processing emotions is difficult, one way that I could express mine, and that of the autism matters group was through music.
In my mind as I was walking one day and thinking of Ziggy song verses started to form. I then worked with Carl to get those emotions out to form the tribute song. I wrote the lyrics but the wonderful Karl Pemberton and Beth Miller sang it.”
This is a story that proves how important it is to find good people who accept you for who you are along the way. The right people can bring out the best in you.
Bobby’s life has taken a turn for the better and he will continue to express his art and feel like he finally belongs.
His book is available to purchase at Waterstones in Middlesbrough or online as well as Amazon.
Here are a few of his songs with his lovely companions:
This song is about moving on from a bad relationship or a bad friendship
Carl Pemberton featuring Beth Miller missing you this song is about my friend who passed away a year ago.
This is my dance song called ex sang by Beth Miller
This song is called Nobody Knows by Carl Pemberton. This is about his mental health and that he didn’t want to reach out to people
This song is called One, sung by Carl Pemberton and it’s about the Manchester bombing
2Shades Magazine 