My father, who came from Birmingham, had a great interest in the GWR. He had quite a few books on the subject, and would get a magazine, the name of which I can't remember. He had a shed built especially for his model railway collection.
Although he was never diagnosed with autism my chosen daughter noticed a good number of shared characteristics between him and me. I wonder whether he had the broad autism phenotype.
He had a very short spell as an army officer before switching to work at the Foreign office. I remember him telling me that he passed the written exam to join the fast track 'A stream' but failed the oral part. That smacks of someone intelligent enough, but lacking the diplomacy skills that were required at the highest level- future ambassador material . I can see how that could easily fit with him having had autistic traits. In the end he had a fairly successful career. He chose to retire early and stay in Atlanta , where he had been British consul general, than become what what was then Ambassador to the Gabon etc.
I wonder how many autistic people/ people who fit BAP, with a very high level of intelligence, don't do as well professionally as neurotypicals with the same or lower level of intelligence.
AH is so into trams, that they are a joy to hear about from her. I have a friend who works for Siemens - not transport though, unfortunately.
EDIT: It would be great, if in school, teachers on specific subjects were truly interested in them. I found my teacher's enthusiasm infectious. This was never so apparent to me when our history teacher changed mid-year. I went from loving it to hating it.
As a kid I was obsessed with trams. I still like them and search info about the models. In my city there were old Duevag from Nederland, also newer Siemens (Duevag and Siemens is actually same) the new trams are branded Siemens and Konstal manufactured in Poland, Chorzow (headquarters) but founded by Germans during occupation. I like Konstal because of its simple design with edges and the brrrr sound of the engine which puts me in some sort of trans and my brain start creating my own music. Now I’m living in a small town in Germany and here are also trams. Siemens and Tatra, which I first confused with Konstal but the engine sound is different and annoying with some sort of squeaking. well I think it’s enough facts about trams. As a kid I used to check the serial number on every tram that passed by, they were always 3 digit. I also drew schemes of tram lines in my imagined cities with timetables and made paper models of them to play. I was just a “tram girl”.
