Born on a Blue Day: Inside the Extraordinary Mind of an Autistic Savant by Daniel Tammet Page A

emptied it, pouring the coins into a mound on the floor, then took the tub and placed the ladybird inside it. Then I went back outside onto the street and spent several hours, until it got too dark to see anymore, looking inside the hedges for other ladybirds. As I found each one, I gently picked it up with my fingertips and placed it with the others in the tub. I had read that ladybirds liked leaves and aphids, so I pulled lots of leaves and some nettles which had aphids on them from the hedges and placed them in the tub with the ladybirds.
    When I returned home I took the tub back up to my room and put it on the table next to my bed. I used a needle to pick some holes in the sides of the tub so the ladybirds would have plenty of air and light in their new home, then put a large book over the top of the tub, to prevent them from flying away all over the house. For the next week each day after school I went out and picked more leaves and aphids for the ladybirds and took them back to the tub in my room. I sprayed some of the leaves with water so they wouldn’t get thirsty.
    In class I talked about the ladybirds ceaselessly until my exasperated teacher, Mr Thraves, asked me to bring them in. The next day I took the tub with me to school and showed my ladybird collection to him and the other children in the class. By that time I had found and placed hundreds of ladybirds in the one tub. He took one look and then asked me to put the tub down on his desk. He gave me a folded piece of paper and asked me to take it to the teacher in the next class. I was gone a few minutes. On my return the tub had disappeared. Mr Thraves, worried that the ladybirds might escape from the tub and fly all over his classroom, had told one of the other children to take it outside and release all the ladybirds. When I realised what had happened, my head felt like it was going to explode. I burst into tears and ran from the class all the way home. I was absolutely distraught and didn’t say a word to the teacher for weeks afterwards and became agitated if he even called my name.
    At other times Mr Thraves could be exceptionally kind towards me. Whenever I became anxious or distressed in class he would take me to the school’s music room to help me calm down. He was a musician and often played the guitar to the children in his lessons. The music room was filled with instruments including cymbals, drums and a piano which were used in the school’s various productions throughout the year. He showed me how the different keys on a piano produce different notes and taught me simple tunes to play. I liked visiting the room and being left to sit at the piano and experiment with the keys. I have always loved music, because of its ability to help relieve any anxiety I might be feeling and to make me feel calm and peaceful inside.
    Feelings of high anxiety were common for me throughout my time at school. I became upset if a school event in which everyone was expected to take part was announced at short notice, or by changes in the normal routines of the class. Predictability was important to me, a way of feeling in control in a given situation, a way of keeping anxiety at bay, at least temporarily. I was never comfortable at school and rarely felt happy, except when left alone to do my own thing. Headaches and stomach aches were frequent signals of how tense I was during this time. Sometimes it got so bad that I did not even make it into class at all, for example if I arrived a few minutes late and realised the class had already gone to assembly. I was terrified of the idea of walking into the hall by myself and didn’t want to wait for all the crowds and noise of the children walking back out together afterwards, so I walked straight back home to my room.
    The school’s annual sports day was a source of considerable distress. I was never interested in joining in and had zero interest in sport. The day involved crowds of shouting onlookers for events such as