From Thunderbirds to Megalodons

Robin, like many children on the spectrum, has an amazing ability to completely immerse himself in a current passion. Some were things you would expect to see in a small child, like Thomas the Tank Engine and Buzz Lightyear, but from the time Robin first saw Virgil saying 'FAB', we have been on a roller coaster journey and Robin has taken us to places, and with an intensity, that we ourselves would never have experienced.

Once Robin discovered Thunderbirds, I remember having to call him 'Virgil' for at least a week. He did the walk, talked the talk. As with most of Robin's passions it is not always easy to get hold of exactly what it is that has attracted him. Thunderbird videos? No problem, but once you start trying to find, say, a Virgil character things become more complicated. Scott yes, Gordon yes, Virgil no. With many of Robin's subsequent passions, we could rest assured that the things he loved would prove a challenge to find. Once he had seen every possible video, DVD, built the various Thunderbirds with his 'clever sticks' and Lego, he discovered Asterix.

Asterix was a great turning point for all of us because it taught Robin to read. He had never really shown any interest in books, or reading, or even listening to stories. It was as though they had nothing to offer him at all, and perhaps they didn't then. I think that Asterix caught his imagination because of the colour and the visual feedback. Most of his subsequent favourite book characters have been cartoons. As it happened we had most of the Asterix books and he devoured them. Poor Virgil was a thing of the past and now he was Asterix. "By Toutatis! Ye Gods! By Jupiter!' were his new buzz words. We spent ages explaining the puns and jokes and Robin loved it. He was Asterix. Now all his drawings and play revolved around Asterix and Obelix. At school when they had a fancy dress day, Robin went as Asterix, something of a challenge for me with his helmet!

Once he had read all the books, reread them and reread them I suggested that he try Tintin. He was not interested in the slightest and refused to even look at them. However he did discover my husband's Dilbert books. Robin was about 7 or 8 at the time and we found it interesting that he chose this as his new passion, given that the cartoons are all about an engineer and his coworkers outwitting the management. I think it might have been the fact that the characters' faces are so uncomplicated. Dilbert and his pet, Dogbert, became Robin's favourite characters. He created an office in his bedroom complete with a laptop he made. There was a framed picture of Dogbert on his desk, a pot for pens and a toy telephone. He found an email address for Scott Adams, the creator of Dilbert, in one of his books and insisted on sending an email. I was a little nervous because I thought he would be disappointed by not getting a reply. I explained that Mr Adams was probably a very busy man and might not have time to reply to all his fans. Just goes to show how little faith I have compared to Robin! The gorgeous Mr Adams replied overnight and made a small boy (and his Mum) very happy. Our challenge that year was to find a Dogbert plush toy which Robin had put on his Christmas list. It took a lot of time searching the Internet. I found only one about 2 weeks before Christmas which a lovely man in the US posted and he arrived just in time.

Dilbert is still a firm favourite which Robin still reads and Dogbert is still a favoured toy, however nothing prepared us for Titanic. Thankfully there are a lot of books on the subject, and I think we have read them all. Robin drew it, made it with his clever sticks and Lego. He could show you exactly how the ship broke up and when. We lived with the Titanic for a long time and it was fascinating. I thought I knew a fair bit about it, but I realise now how much more there was to the story. Then one day Robin picked up a Tintin book I had brought home from the library, Tintin and the Shooting Star. This story featured a trip across the Arctic Ocean in a passenger liner and obviously caught his eye. We went through all of the Tintin books and he just adored them. Dogbert became Snowy and 'blistering barnacles' and 'thundering typhoons' were the order of the day.

I can't remember how Star Wars came into Robin's life, but it has proved to be one of the most all-consuming. I don't think there's a single character that Robin can't tell you about. He has made the most complex starships and fighters from his clever sticks that are instantly recognisable as X-wing fighters or whatever it is he is making. He has read all the DK Star Wars books and pores over them for hours. He puts together his Star Wars Lego kits into new machines for the rebel force from his own imagination.

It was our inability to find one of the things that Robin had put on his list for Santa that lead to his latest passion. You cannot find rebel fighter helmets anywhere to the best of my knowledge. I can't remember how or why, but my husband suggested a shark's tooth. Not much of a link is there? But Robin had written 'Great White toy' too, (also not an easy thing to come by in plush I have to tell you). We found ourselves in a shop that sold fossils and marine books and toys and saw some fossilised sharks teeth. We bought one, mounted it, and put it in Robin's stocking.

We had no idea of the impact it would have. It turned out that it was the tooth of an extinct mackerel shark, a relative of the Great White and Megalodon (thankfully extinct, enormous creatures that used to eat whales). Sharks for most people my age are associated with 'Jaws', and not something that figures at the top of our 'must save' endangered species list, but if you see them through Robin's eyes, they are beautiful, elegant creatures no more or less so than a lion or tiger. He dreams of swimming in a cage with sharks and to own a megalodon tooth. Looks like that's our next challenge, but perhaps easier to manage than a place with the rebel force at the Battle of Endor.