The "Get a Life" factor of the mid 1990s

[George 1978]

Bear in mind that most of the sporting challenges are practice practice practice until you are confident you can do them in the time limit, whereas the car headlights challenges are the epitome of obsession and dedication - especially if you aren't working in the automotive parts business or similar.

I was the one who used to ask my mother for a sicknote, excusing me from PE, and so I preferred to watch sports on the TV. I believe that the majority of those interested in car headlights probably work for Kwik-Fit or somewhere similar.

Autism and Asperger Syndrome by Uta Frith was the world's standard handbook on Asperger syndrome before Tony Attwood wrote his book. It's notable that it is written in an easy to read style that could be understood by parents, teachers, GPs etc. who had not formally studied psychology, as opposed to it being a highly technical textbook for professional psychologists.

Again, it was a bit before my time - had my diagnosis (and my nephew's) was five years before for example, (although it would have been before he was born!) I probably would have taken notice of it back then.

That is quite early, especially for somebody who has finished school. A psychologist told me that it's rare to find anybody diagnosed with Asperger syndrome born before 1988 who had a diagnosis before 2005.

Did you have a statement of SEN whilst at school? I have known people with Asperger syndrome who had a statement of SEN back in the 1990s, and even early 2000s, but were not diagnosed until after the age of 16. In some cases they only found out about Asperger Syndrome after watching the documentary My Family and Autism, featuring Luke Jackson, which was broadcast in 2003.

It was due to my nephew's autism diagnosis which happened when I was 16-17, and that was a few months after I left school - I was yet to be diagnosed when I was at school, and a lot of people at a social group that I went to a few years later said that it was for the best that it didn't happen while I was still at school. I did see some specialists including an Educational Psychologist circa 1990 - he didn't mention Asperger Syndrome back then, although ironically, he mentioned in medical notes back in 1983 as "he does not have autism".

I certainly remember the Luke Jackson documentary on BBC Two in 2003 and I also have the book, Freaks, Geeks and Asperger Syndriome by Jackson which came out the same time - published by Jessica Kkingsley Publishing. I atteneded a meeting in the cafe part of my local Waterstones back then - as I was leaving, I saw Jackson's book on a shelf so I bought a copy. I still have it on my bookcase in the room, next to the Tony Attwood book, also published by JKP.

[Arran]

You Bet! was a great show especially when Bruce Forsyth presented it. There were some challenges on there which could be seen as "eccentric" such as the headlights one - I used to enjoy those challenges rather than the gymnasts appearing on most shows, trying to do 100 somersaults in three minutes or whatever.

Bear in mind that most of the sporting challenges are practice practice practice until you are confident you can do them in the time limit, whereas the car headlights challenges are the epitome of obsession and dedication - especially if you aren't working in the automotive parts business or similar.

I have got a few Asperger syndrome books on my bookshelves (most of of them published by Jessica Kingley Publishing), but the Frith one I don't think I have heard of.

Autism and Asperger Syndrome by Uta Frith was the world's standard handbook on Asperger syndrome before Tony Attwood wrote his book. It's notable that it is written in an easy to read style that could be understood by parents, teachers, GPs etc. who had not formally studied psychology, as opposed to it being a highly technical textbook for professional psychologists.

My own diagnosis was in 1996 a year after my nephew's autism diagnosis.

That is quite early, especially for somebody who has finished school. A psychologist told me that it's rare to find anybody diagnosed with Asperger syndrome born before 1988 who had a diagnosis before 2005.

Did you have a statement of SEN whilst at school? I have known people with Asperger syndrome who had a statement of SEN back in the 1990s, and even early 2000s, but were not diagnosed until after the age of 16. In some cases they only found out about Asperger Syndrome after watching the documentary My Family and Autism, featuring Luke Jackson, which was broadcast in 2003.

[Richard1978]

I can remember email addresses mentioned on TV programmes from about 1992, & web addresses are featured in magazines I have from 1995 onwards.

[George 1978]

There was a TV programme called You Bet! in the 1990s. It had sporting type challenges and challenges like identifying cars from their headlights. Could the contrast between the two have had any impact on society. Sporting = normal. Car headlights = weird?

Asperger Syndrome became public knowledge in 1991 following the publication of the book Autism and Asperger Syndrome by Uta Frith.

The first TV programme in Britain to mention Asperger Syndrome appears to be QED: I'm Not Stupid, broadcast in April 1995 on BBC1. Half of the decade had gone by then.

When exactly did the media first start mentioning Asperger Syndrome?

You Bet! was a great show especially when Bruce Forsyth presented it. There were some challenges on there which could be seen as "eccentric" such as the headlights one - I used to enjoy those challenges rather than the gymnasts appearing on most shows, trying to do 100 somersaults in three minutes or whatever. I have got a few Asperger syndrome books on my bookshelves (most of of them published by Jessica Kingley Publishing), but the Frith one I don't think I have heard of. I would guess it was the early 1990s when it was mentioned, and only BBC documentries mentioned it back then. I wrote to Points of View, mentioning a later QED documentary, and saying that it was a great documentary put together.

My own diagnosis was in 1996 a year after my nephew's autism diagnosis. Looking at the Times Digital Archive, autism was more prominently mentioned from the 1960s onwards, but I don't remember it mentioned prior to around 1991 as you said. Of course, I didn't take notice of it back then as it was prior to my own diagnosis. I was amazed to see Coronavirus mentioned in The Times (in its plural form) in around 1980! I thought that it was only since the late 2010s at the earliest that had been discovered.

[George 1978]

I'm interested in knowing if any school careers advisors recommended people in your year group to become website designers or web programmers. The internet was about to take off around the time you finished Y11 and it created many new types of careers.

I left school in March 1994 (unofficially a couple months short of the offical date), and I had not heard of the Internet until early 1995 when website addresses started to appear in TV adverts - the Guinness advert where that man did that strange dance to that late 1950s style music was the first time I can remember that I saw a website address in screen. Computers (in which I had access to at school) did not have internet access and was just basic "write and print out" machines. I am certain that the internet or email was not referred to when I was at school - the Maths and Technology teachers would have mentioned it at the time if they had.

I don't think the Asians are any more intelligent than native British people are. They just have a different attitude and outlook on life, along with a higher level of drive and entrepreneural spirit. Lower class British people more often than not just take life in the slow lane and children are encouraged by their parents to follow in their footsteps. Middle class British people like to study subjects that they enjoy even if career prospects aren't good.

A lot of Asians do have forward-looking careers and many of them have arrived on the Sunday Times Rich List; the fact that they are UK citizend have allowed to be successful.

[beccabear67]

Does anyone remember the sort of traveling architecture critic Ian Nairn? He had various series on BBC visiting different places and critiquing their town planning and so forth. Anyway, he reminds me a lot of a friend with Aspergers. He (Nairn) seemed very effected by architecture and infrastructure, very emotional about it. No idea if he was diagnosed with anything though. He died in 1983 from his liver packing it in because of too much drink they say, He loved pubs, his happy places!

[Arran]

I have wondered what originally triggered this situation off in the mid 1990s - was it because of John Major's personality as PM or characters like Mr Bean? Why was it fashionable circa 1995 to ridicule someone for being different, I wonder?

There was a TV programme called You Bet! in the 1990s. It had sporting type challenges and challenges like identifying cars from their headlights. Could the contrast between the two have had any impact on society. Sporting = normal. Car headlights = weird?

Even Asperger Syndrome was quoted in the Birmingham Post in the late 1990s as the "trainspotters' disease" when Tony Attwood who wrote a book on the subject was interviewed.

Asperger Syndrome became public knowledge in 1991 following the publication of the book Autism and Asperger Syndrome by Uta Frith.

The first TV programme in Britain to mention Asperger Syndrome appears to be QED: I'm Not Stupid, broadcast in April 1995 on BBC1. Half of the decade had gone by then.

When exactly did the media first start mentioning Asperger Syndrome?

[Arran]

At the time, there was this stereotype that I would work in an office because of my ability to use a computer, do filing and all that - schools in the early 1990s were very good at steeotyping pupils and putting them into one little box when it came to what they were good at, such as "he's got an A+ in Art - he will become the next Picasso", etc. I had this feeling that they were stereotyping me into what I would have became. I would have gone onto training, but all this further education situation reminded me too much of school which put me off attending it. People shouldn't be put off education, but the system is arranged in such a way that it can put people off, and I have experienced that.

I would love to do something that I can express myself with, and in recent years, I have done some of that, but I do wish that it could have helped me pay the bills, i.e. done it as an occupation.

I'm interested in knowing if any school careers advisors recommended people in your year group to become website designers or web programmers. The internet was about to take off around the time you finished Y11 and it created many new types of careers.

I used to go to an Infant and Junior School in a prominently Asian area - one of them of Indian origin was a best friend in the Infants. I remember in the Infants we had a talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up, and he actually said that he wanted to read The Times, and becoime a businessman ior even work in the media or something - it was like something out of a 1960s edition of the Seven-Up documemntary that the late Michael Apted directed. He was so forwards even back then, and I think that he was observant back then and liked to play Let's Pretend, parodying adult roles. I am nearly two years older than Rishi Sunak (he was born in 1980), and it makes me think of Asians who did go to school in the 1980s where he would have been one of them. They are intelligent and many of them have their own businesses.

I don't think the Asians are any more intelligent than native British people are. They just have a different attitude and outlook on life, along with a higher level of drive and entrepreneural spirit. Lower class British people more often than not just take life in the slow lane and children are encouraged by their parents to follow in their footsteps. Middle class British people like to study subjects that they enjoy even if career prospects aren't good.

[George 1978]

I have wondered what originally triggered this situation off in the mid 1990s - was it because of John Major's personality as PM or characters like Mr Bean? Why was it fashionable circa 1995 to ridicule someone for being different, I wonder?

Even Asperger Syndrome was quoted in the Birmingham Post in the late 1990s as the "trainspotters' disease" when Tony Attwood who wrote a book on the subject was interviewed.

[George 1978]

What did school careers advisers recommend for you? I wonder if any teenager has been recommended to become a sociologist.

I suppose that back in the day, if anyone had suggested that I should have been such a person, I would have thought that they would be taking the Mickey. These days howver, I would take it as a compliament.

After I left school, I had a chat with the Careers Afviser independently at the carers office in the City Centre (she used to make frequent appearances at my school, but because I decided to quit school because I had enough - see relevant thread for more than that: 25 and now 30 Years Since Leaving School thread - I thought that I would come to her place).

At the time, there was this stereotype that I would work in an office because of my ability to use a computer, do filing and all that - schools in the early 1990s were very good at steeotyping pupils and putting them into one little box when it came to what they were good at, such as "he's got an A+ in Art - he will become the next Picasso", etc. I had this feeling that they were stereotyping me into what I would have became. I would have gone onto training, but all this further education situation reminded me too much of school which put me off attending it. People shouldn't be put off education, but the system is arranged in such a way that it can put people off, and I have experienced that.

I would love to do something that I can express myself with, and in recent years, I have done some of that, but I do wish that it could have helped me pay the bills, i.e. done it as an occupation.

I used to go to an Infant and Junior School in a prominently Asian area - one of them of Indian origin was a best friend in the Infants. I remember in the Infants we had a talk about what we wanted to be when we grew up, and he actually said that he wanted to read The Times, and becoime a businessman ior even work in the media or something - it was like something out of a 1960s edition of the Seven-Up documemntary that the late Michael Apted directed. He was so forwards even back then, and I think that he was observant back then and liked to play Let's Pretend, parodying adult roles. I am nearly two years older than Rishi Sunak (he was born in 1980), and it makes me think of Asians who did go to school in the 1980s where he would have been one of them. They are intelligent and many of them have their own businesses.

[Arran]

When I can find the time I attend events like comic-cons & there are a fair amount of non-white people attending.

I can believe this. However, such people are a quite scarce at classic car and retro computer events.

Something I have noticed is that very few Pakistanis are interested in gardening but a reasonably good number of Bangladeshis are - mostly for their native vegetables. However, they don't seem to watch gardening programmes on TV or read gardening magazines.

It's notable that a good number of south Asian parents used to record BBC and ITV schools programmes back in the 1980s and 90s for their children to watch at home at evenings and weekends. Something that would be considered weird by the vast majority of white British parents at the time. Even the majority of teachers back then held the attitude that these programmes were supposed to be watched at school, not at home.

[Richard1978]

When I can find the time I attend events like comic-cons & there are a fair amount of non-white people attending.

[Arran]

What did school careers advisers recommend for you? I wonder if any teenager has been recommended to become a sociologist.

To be honest, I think having all these hobbies and interests is a very British thing. Most immigrants (even second generation) in Britain don't have the same degree of affection for them. I rarely encountered foreign people in the magazine section of WH Smith back in the 1990s and early 2000s.

An English person who spends their weekends building model railways might be told to get a life. A Pakistani person would be considered to be a complete head case.

[George 1978]

There are times when I think George should have become a sociologist...

Thanks, Arran - I will take that as a compliment! I probably never thought of myself as being a sociologist!

To be fair, regarding the link between Mr Bean and stamps, there was an episode of Mr Bean (Rides Again, I think from 1992) where Bean needs a first class stamp to put on his Spot the Ball coupon envelope, and so he tried to get a stamp from someone else by trying to post their letter for them and then forcing the stamp off the envelope, even using the sweet stuck in his left-hand jacket pocket* to give it some adheisive so that it would stick on his envelope. As the woman comes back and tells the postman that there was a stamp on her envelope, Bean hides inside the postbox until the next collection come along.

* One assumes that it was supposed to be the same sweet that he put in his jacket pocket at the end of the first episode when he was in the church sitting next to Richard Briers' character, after he used the same pocket as a tissue after he sneezed. But in the first Mr Bean episode, the sweet was in his right-hand jacket pocket when in Rides Again, aka Episode Six, the sweet was in his left-hand jacket pocket. Just an observation.

The TV Licence slogan in the mid 1990s was: "get a TV Licence - it's cheaper than a (big) fine". To quote West Yorkshire Major Tracy Brabin's Coronation Street character Tricia Armstrong from January 1996 (on YT if you don't believe me): "If I could afford to pay t'fine, I could afford to pay t'licence".

In around 1998, I used to be a WHSmith Clubcard member (remember that? I assume that they ceased because of Tesco's namesake), and what with the various obscure magazines in that store (in the HIGNFY "guest publication" sense), I bought various publications such as Police Review (not because I am neither an officer or a criminal, you understand!); Disability Now (as I do have a disability), and since than to the present day (keeping the Ian Hislop link in there of course), Private Eye which I still have now. Since then, WHSmith has reduced the number of these obscure magazines, although I am lucky to get a copy of The Stage in there, and it is only in branches in towns and cities that I am visiting, that they still sell them.

[Arran]

There are times when I think George should have become a sociologist...

Very thought provoking observations, although I'm not sure that Mr Bean should have been mixed up with stamp collecting! Rowan Atkinson is a very talented actor, and at the time Mr Bean was being produced by Thames TV, you could find magazines for every conceivable hobby at WH Smith.

I can vaguely remember a TV Licensing advert with the strapline "Get a life, get a TV licence" some time in the late 1990s.

LilacLobster and Richard make a valid point that things which were geeky back in the 1990s have become acceptable or normal now. Social media in 1990s was deemed to be a den of nerds and geeks with no social life and no social skills. Nowadays, anybody who doesn't use social media is deemed to have no social life and no social skills. Even online shopping was seen as a bit weird in the 1990s - the decade when big shopping centres were under construction.