It was with some trepidation that I accepted the assignment to visit Larry Arnold as it entailed going into that part of the town which was once known as "dodge City

So it was I parked my car, amongst those bleak and monotonous houses whose lack of design has 50's utility written all over it.

 I walk past the pub with its complement of regulars obviosly with no regular employment but no lack of beer money either. I find Larry’s block, a four storey concrete affair of which some attempt had been made on the surface to smarten up with a coat of paint, but which now stands forlorn amongst others of its ilk, with boarded windows and the air of dereliction to be expected of flats long since abandoned and scheduled for demolition.

To get to the broken and graffiti covered common entrance door I have to pass the overspill of rubbish uncollected by the Council over the new year and Christmas break.

I climb the three flights of stairs, neglected by the inhabitants and never swept clean, my heart begins to pound.

At the end of the hall, the very last in the flat in the block I find Larry's flat. Instantly I am struck by the potted plants he has put outside his door to try and introduce some humanity into this desolate block. I also notice the frequently repaired front door, a legacy of various attempted break ins. Not for nothing is it now secured with three strong locks.

The interior is a surprise, After delicately negotiating the hallway, like some companionway in a submarine, dodging between the overspill of shelves that have found their way out there I can see that Larry is a man of culture. It is not the three piece suite and entertainment centre in a corner kind of front room I am used to, Larry possesses a veritable library, and there are antiques too, although somewhat battered and gathering dust which is everywhere.

He motions me to sit down on the one chair that is not occupied by folders or clothes, apologising for the fact that it is rather rickety

"I tend to destroy chairs when I sit in them" he says

I am instantly aware of the contradictions of the man. Here he is on a Council Estate but obviously a man of some intellectual ability, surrounded by books and computers. How does he come to be here ? how is it he doesn't have a job ? I cannot help but wonder.

How is it too with these signs of a lively intelligence that he professes that he cannot cook and offers to show me where he set fire to the kitchen not long ago? Or how it is that he somehow does not seem to have the ability to keep his flat clean and organised? Dust is everywhere, there are no curtains at the windows, and magazines and papers lie all around in piles. The walls too, such as I can see of them behind the shelves and the photographs he has hanging, seemingly only ever decorated once in the last 20 years and poorly done at that. How can anyone live with such contradictions?

“Autism” he says, or more particularly the variety which has been given the name of Asperger's syndrome over the last decade or so.

Autism, I think, and images of the rain man spring to mind, or images of speechless children banging their heads incessantly against the wall.

"Oh I can bang my head against the wall all right" he tells me "but more often in the metaphorical sense of campaigning for the impossible from unrelenting authorities. Look I just used a metaphor, they say we are not capable of that"

Larry is no rain man Savant either, in fact he cannot even count his change when he goes to the shops and relies upon the honesty of shopkeepers who fortunately do not know that. Nonetheless I cannot help being impressed by his knowledge of facts and his erudition. Many of his shelves are taken up by planning documents, the history of the City's development over the years.

“I know more about this than anyone who works for the department” he boasts.

It is not an idle boast either, for his impressive knowledge has allowed him to argue objections and make modifications to those very documents he archives so lovingly.

"When my mum was alive, we were a team" he says, she did my communicating, and I did the research and together we really challenged the City’s notions about providing an accessible environment for disabled people

A life that all fell apart when his mother died suddenly in 1997. Without the knowledge that he had Asperger's he could not understand why his life was falling apart and why he could no longer do the things he did while his mother was there with him. He felt a keen rejection from people who he thought he could rely on for a job, who had only put up with him so he said for his mothers sake unaware that he had any real worth in himself.

"I did what I was supposed to, unable to get a job, I set up in business, but that was unrealistic, I did not know what that entailed and that failed."

It was after this that he was plunged into a long depression that only now is he fully recovering from.

"The diagnosis of AS helped me through that" he said "It explained what I thought were my own individual failings, and helped me to gain an identity that I never really had before, to be proud of myself and my differences, those things that the world ought to value but does not"

"I know that living in the times I did, that the diagnosis could not have come when I was a child" he said wondering how life might have been different for him, how he might have been able to receive help at school or at the crucial time of going to University.

How Social Services ought to have stepped in when his mother died to prevent the decline and near suicide that inevitably followed

"I cannot change my past" he passionately declares "but I can try and change other peoples futures, to be a part of making that world where people on all levels of the autistic spectrum can rise and achieve the maximum that there level of ability allows them.

"Independence is not about being on ones own in the world, it is about interacting with it in the right way, of receiving support but giving back at the same time"

Larry Arnold lives in a "no fines" Council flat, years ago it was realised that these system built Wimpey flats had a basic flaw, that of insulation, they were chronically damp due to condensation in the winter and not altogether healthy places to be. A fact recognised by the DSS originally in that there inhabitants were entitled to an extra heating allownace. Sadly this recognition was swept away with the Fowler reforms in the 1980's when everybodies needs were considered to be roughly equal saving in the costs of administrating these "extra" benefits.

Things could not be worse as Larry Arnold was forced to spend many years living away from his flat, looking after his mother, which meant that he missed out on the modernisation of the flats, leaving him with a coal fire when others had gas central heating put in.

"The fact that everyone else has central heating means there is no longer anywhere to keep the coal" he complains

"I suppose I could always store it in the bath" he jokes alluding to the classic prejudice against giving the working classes amenities which they would only abuse.

"At the least the flat was still here when my mum died" he adds with a note of half hearted optimism. However the circumstances of his living would render it difficult to modernise now, He has accumulated so much clutter, much of it moved from his mothers larger flat when she died, that it would be very hard for anyone to work there, you cannot see a wall for bookshelves, and there is not enough room for anyone to lie flat out on any of the floors. It is as if he is attempting to shoehorn the contents of the British Library and several museums into his somewhat inadequate living space.

The problem too is that Larry has "Asperger's syndrome" though he refuses to let me call it a disability. It means that he would find it very difficult to allow people into his domain to disrupt his rigid living patterns further complicating the matters of repair and modernisation.

"I have a Social Worker now, who is supposed to be helping me with situation, but that again was something I had to fight for" he adds.

Larry is quick to point out that he does not consider himself in any way typical of people with Asperger’s "We are all such individuals" He says  "Perhaps that is the only thing we do have in common"

He reminds me that there are many people with Asperger's who have not achieved the degree of independent living that he has, though on the other hand there are also many who have successful jobs, houses and families.

"The fact of Asperger's does not predict anything" he asserts "other than that you are sure to find that the majority of people do not understand your needs and cannot appreciate why you live as you do and have so little choice in the matter"

Larry has a striking if unsettling appearance as he rocks in his typists chair, leaving me the alternative seat, which he warns me may collapse underneath me at any moment.

I know that Larry does not approve of drawing any conclusions from a persons physical appearance or mannerisms but I feel I would be letting my readers down if I did not say something of the way he makes me feel uncomfortable and an alien in his world. He talks emphatically and insistently hardly giving me a chance to pose my necessary questions, and those dark glasses of his preclude any possibility of eye contact even if he were to condescend to looking in my direction as I struggle with my notes to present any realistic picture of how it all appears.

"So what are you going to write about me? " he asks as I complete my enquiries. "Not another sob story and appeal for funds for the NAS, none of which will ever benefit me" he complains loudly.

"I remember back in the 60's a newspaper wrote an article about my dad who was a folk singer at the time"

It tried to paint him as a communist because that suited their notion of the protest singer, they even tried to draw conclusions from the red jumper he always wore  (because as Larry later explained his mum was not good a knitting and that was the only good one he had)

"Yes I recall they mentioned this line from a song he used to sing –  I don't want your millions, mister, I don't want your pleasure yacht, all I want is my old job back"

That is all that Larry wants, not charity, not tear jerking human warmth stories but the right to make his way in life on equal terms with the next person.