When you say that when you were growing up you always thought there was something different about you. Can you explain a bit more about what that was?
Tim: It’s difficult. I mean, without wanting to sound too arrogant, my usual problem, I was pretty much top of the class all the way through juniors and into comprehensive. So I realised I was fairly intelligent.
Julie: That’s without any effort as well. You know, because I was at school with Tim and I was above average shall we say, but I had to fight achieve everything whereas he’d do his homework over breakfast, on his way up to school and get top marks you know, just one of them people that you hated [laugh]. Because I’d been at mine for weeks and I’d get an average mark [laugh].
Tim: I managed to work out I were fairly intelligent… and I was very, I think diffident is probably the best way to describe it. Maybe because of that you realise that you know, you’re intelligent, you feel that you stood off from people a bit, and they just felt there had to be that, that distance. And it was difficult for me to, to read people. So people might have been having a joke and I could be, you know, a bit snappish. Like Julie says, there was no understanding that it might be a joke.
Julie: Or the other way they could be taking the mickey and you wouldn’t realise either?
Tim: So you could have someone being a bit unpleasant and not realise it. And because of that there’s always that, that distance. It’s difficult to break through it. And even as a child I would avoid social situations. So things like parties or group events. I’d be more inclined to avoid them, and again never really realised why. But, it was difficult to get past that… it was difficult to get into that social interaction. I could cope with a small group of friends quite easily and that works very well. But as soon as you started talking about into a more social situation it really was very, very difficult really. And I think I realised there was that distance and I that was finding it really difficult to break through to people. And I don’t know really.
