Strike Factory

Last week I watched the first episode of Autistic Gardener on Channel 4. The show hosted by an award winning garden designer who is autistic, called Alan Gardner. Basically Gardner assembles a team of garden designers which might seem easy for an expert, but they are also autistic and are new to the gardening industry.

In addition they have to work to a budget and a deadline date, as a team. These sort of things can be a bit difficult and stressful for some of us autistic folk. But the team consisting of five young people suffering from autism – Charles, Victoria, James, Philip and Thomas, manage to design their first garden with success.

What I also love is the contestants or new garden designers have varying degrees of autism/ aspergers with them either living independently but finding it difficult to find work (like me), or vice versa unlikely to live independently, as there is a misconception that we are all like Raymond from the 1988 movie Rainman, when no 2 people with autism/ aspergers are exactly the same. Plus showing we are exactly individuals that are not stupid or crazy, just we see and understand things in a different way as are brains are wired differently.  We just seek to be better understood in the world. All in all, it was great to watch, and I recommend tuning in at 8pm on Channel 4 Wednesdays.