Trucking Impossible: Autism, COVID-19, and the Industry We All Rely On

By Stuart Harvey

Based on the extraordinary true-to-life accounts of HGV driver Stuart Harvey, Trucking Impossible delves into the rather unusual lives of one of the nation’s rarest forms of hardworking workforces, the Aspies. Stuart gives us that rare insight on what it’s like to be socially awkward whilst being stationed on the front line of one of the most demanding and sometimes dangerous industries on the planet. Having to deal with a number of challenging situations whilst trying to provide every single one of us with our needs and desires, twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week.

From the popular writer who gave us gems such as Wheels of Thunder and Survivor comes the insane and truly explosive, new true-to-life stories of Stuart Harvey himself, as he discusses his role of being one of the UK’s essential workers, during the COVID years. Read and drive in-between the white lines, and learn about the shifts, drives, and missions!

• Language: English
• Publisher: PageTurner Press and Media
• Release date: May 21, 2024
• ISBN: 9798891745438

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Copyright © 2024 by Stuart Harvey

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All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or manner, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage or retrieval system, without the express written permission of the copyright owner except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

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Created in the United States of America

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024906004

ISBN: Softcover 979-8-89174-542-1

e-Book 979-8-89174-543-8

Republished by: PageTurner Press and Media LLC

Publication Date: 04/13/2024

_____________________________________________________________________

To order copies of this book, contact:

PageTurner Press and Media

Phone: [phone]

[e-mail]

www.pageturner.us

Contents

Prologue

Let’s Hit the Road vii

Chapter One

Humble and Turbulent Beginnings 1

Chapter Two

The All-Important HGV Test (Now You’re Talking) 22

Chapter Three

At Work With A.S.D, (A Few Do’s and Don’ts for Employers and the Like) 38

Chapter Four

The Road Runners (Marks One to Seven) 62

Chapter Five

The First Lockdown (All Hands, Battle Stations) 80

Chapter Six

Driving In All Weather’s (And the lessons to learn from it) 105

Chapter Seven

Lending a Helping Hand, Aiding West Midlands Police 125

Chapter Eight

An Unofficial Promotion, And A Commendation by Royal Appointment 147

Chapter Nine

The Second Lockdown (Cracks Start to Show) 166

Chapter Ten

Christmas in the Cab, (Christmas On The Roads In Lockdown, December 2020) 186

Chapter Eleven

When Trucks Bite Back (Road Runner Mark Seven, March-April 2021) 205

Chapter Twelve

Radio Road Runner, (7th April 2021) 229

Chapter Thirteen

The Fuel Rat Race (Panic at the Pumps, September 2021) 253

Chapter Fourteen

The Tabloids to the Rescue (The Autistic Trucker, Metro News, Oct 2021, Feb 2022, and April 2023) 271

Chapter Fifteen

Injured Whilst In The Line Of Duty (The Pushbike Collison, 9th December 2021) 291

Chapter Sixteen

Dash Camera’s, (The Hidden Crimefighter) 310

Chapter Seventeen

Remembering Ruby Fury 328

Chapter Eighteen

A Few Things to Finish on 351

Epilogue

The Future, And An End To The Driving Shift 373

In loving memory of

Ruby Lily ‘Ace’ Fury

1968-2021

Prologue

Let’s Hit the Road

We’ve all heard of the elite of the elite, the best of the best, the cream of the crop; but have you ever come face to face with what most would deem the crazy or the impossible. (Well, it wouldn’t be impossible if it could be done now could it, but try telling that to legendary actor Tom Cruise after all of his Mission Impossible movies). Trucking Impossible, Autism, Covid-19 and the industry we all rely on, is a chapter of my life which is as true and as accurate as I can make it, during a time when the world seemed like it was lurching from disaster to disaster. We all hear about the end of the world in Hollywood disaster movies and the like, but never feel as if we’ll ever come close to it in our real and everyday lives. In the early 2020s, that was more of a closer reality than many of us would dare hope to imagine, as we all were affected by Covid-19 in some way or another.

In many ways, we all gave our thanks to the essential workers of our own separate countries and their efforts in stopping Covid-19. To quote country singing legend Brad Paisley and his ‘No I in Beer’ song, ‘to the farmers and the first responders, to the truck driver’s shifting gears; every nurse who needs a break, let me buy you a drink, there ain’t no I in beer’. As the words ‘truck driver’ have been mentioned, it might be a good idea for me to say what Trucking Impossible is really all about. Trucking Impossible is the semi-true to life story of my time driving HGVs during the Covid-19 pandemic and beyond, whilst also unwittingly representing a community of people who are almost unheard of by the wider world. I am just one of a few from the said community that I refer to; our name; the Autistic truckers, (or Aspie truckers, if you wanted to put a North American slant on it).

Having originally been diagnosed with Autism in 1996 and then again in 2004, I’d always had it fixed in my mind that I wanted to be a truck driver after I’d left school. The trouble was, who in their right mind had ever heard of an Autistic truck driver? If you were to look at it logically, truck drivers with Autism just shouldn’t exist, because of what decades of scientific research into Autistic behaviour would tell us. But yet here we are, trucking along the highway, not just surviving, but in some cases, thriving. In 2021 and 2022, I got the chance to speak to a journalist about being one of the UKs few and rare Autistic truck drivers, with the response being one of complete fascination and amazement. Since starting my haulage career doing van driving work in 2014 and then progressing to HGV work in 2019, I’ve seen some really strange and wacky sites in such an incredibly short period of time.

I’ll certainly delve into that during this book, while telling you some of the wackiest, weirdest, scariest and even down right hilarious stories of life on two to eighteen wheels. Now, it’s worth noting before we continue that some of the details, names and situations, have been altered slightly in the stories I will tell you in the book, just to protect those who don’t wish to be mentioned by name, or just so that everything in the book make sense to you. (And because I don’t particularly want to be sued for printing misinformation or something crazy like that). I’ll do my best to try and explain to you what everything means, (just so you’re not left scratching your head in confusion wondering what the hell I’m on about). Yes, welcome to the world of the wonderfully named haulage and distribution industry, populated by every kind of human being you can imagine from all walks of life.

At times, the road can be a dream to be on, as we picture ourselves on top of the world, and at other times, it can be trucking hell, as we attempt to deal with whatever the nation’s highways can throw at us. Ah breaker one nine, this here is the Aspie Trucker, you got a copy on me out there, come on. Think ‘Convoy’, think ‘Smokey and the Bandit’, think ‘Black Dog’, and many other trucking movies that you can imagine inside your mind, as it’s time for us to climb into the cab and haul out those loads. Through thick and thin, through thunder and rain, through scorching heat and blustery winds, this is your captain speaking, Stuart Harvey, the Aspie Trucker. Let me take you and my trusted 18-wheeler steed, the Road Runner, on a ride through the wonderful, challenging, and even downright scary world of the truck driver. Are your engines running; if there not, fire them up and let’s go?

Brace yourselves everyone, do you have what it takes to be, the Trucking Impossible?

Chapter One

Humble and Turbulent Beginnings

Come on in, have a sit down, let me give you time to show you around; Harvey is the name, Stuart Harvey, or the name I have come to be known as, ‘the Aspie Trucker’. Welcome to Trucking Impossible, a world of HGVs, heavy haulage, and a thirst for knowledge and understanding. Well, if driving is your thing, (or specialist subject as it’s known in the world of Autism), then you’ve come to the right place, as I’m the Aspie Trucker, and I can haul you around. So, it’s time to hitch up your trailers, whichever they maybe, and head out onto the highway, as you settle in for the long shift. I’m no Mad Max; I’m no speed freak; I’m not even a person who makes pointless decisions, I just live by the four-letter acronym, J.T.F.D. Just remember folks, I’m ‘Just The Flippin Driver’. This is the point where you would que the soundtrack to the Mission Impossible films, and rightly so, as trucking can sometimes be, the impossible made possible.

The modern-day truck driver is a tough and courageous character, having to deal with so many things while they work. Heartache, loneliness and danger, are just three of the many life lessons that a highway knight, (or princess for that matter), has to deal with. Naturally it would be a little one sided if we forget to mention about the lovely and charming female truck drivers, who make just as many sacrifices as much as their male colleagues do. Truckers come in all shapes and sizes, with those who are tall, short, fat, thin, male, female, LGBT and so on. But there is one category which we should give a special mention to, as it’s the category which will define this book forever more. I am of course referring to the Autistic trucker, by far the rarest bred of them all, but yet still a smaller part of a far larger hidden army of mighty road warriors, that do battle every day with some of our nation’s toughest challenges.

Challenges such as, meeting time slots, battling bad and impatient drivers, and on top of all else, making sure that they stay on the right side of the law. (In order to make the previous sentence make more sense, you need to say it in the voice of Sam the Eagle from the Muppets, as it just makes it sound a lot more official and truer to life). Attention readers, your mission, should you wish to accept it, is to gain an understanding of the haulage world and its workforce. To gain a better understanding of the 18-wheeler world, and by the time you finish reading this book, to have a greater respect for our unseen but yet visible workforce in the modern-day world. My name (for those who didn’t read the prologue), is Stuart Harvey, and my life mission began in the year 1993, when my parents Andrew and Julie Harvey welcomed baby Stuart into the world.

If you’re reading this in the hope to hear a misery memoir, then I’m sorry to disappoint you, but my childhood up until the age of eleven was not unhappy or depressing. It was just like any other ordinary middle-class family, with the exception of just one little thing. We all know the scene from the Harry Potter film series where the character called Hagrid declares to the eleven-year-old Harry Potter, you’re a wizard Harry. Well, let’s just say that when I was eleven years old in 2004, I was told something which would define my lifetime for what it would be forever more. Instead of, ‘you’re a wizard Harry’, it was more along the lines of, ‘Stuart, you’re Autistic’. Now what you have to understand is, is that I knew nothing about what Autism was, or had never even heard of Autism, ASD, Asperger’s etc, (which in truth, many people back in 1990s Britain certainly hadn’t).

But the one thing that it did do, was explain to me why people had been doing their best to get as far away from me as possible, every single time I’d gone within audible range of them. Get away from me freak, or crawl back in your hole weirdo would often be the sort of greetings I would get from some people, who let’s face it, just didn’t get the whole ‘some people are different’ thing. I hope that in time those people did change their view on Autistic individuals, as we’re certainly not as bad as that, (with the noticeable symptoms of social awkwardness of course). This is a term I come to fondly know as ‘awkwardistus’, which just for the record is not an officially recognised medical condition by the world health organisation. If it was by luck, or else by common logic, not everyone thought that way, as I did have a few people who stood by me during my school days, but in truth, couldn’t say for certain whether they understood me or not.

It wasn’t the first time that I’d been forced to stand alone in the school playground, wondering when I would finally get noticed by people, or if anyone would dare to associate with, ‘that weird Stuart kid’. By the time I’d reached the age of eleven, I felt as if things couldn’t have been more apparent that I was going to stick out like a sore thumb in the wider world, however much I tried to blend in. When my parents finally sat me down at the kitchen table and told me about my Asperger’s in 2004, I was of the opinion in the early days that it was some kind of a superpower. The sort of biological superpower that you would use for good deeds and acts, and never for any kinds of evil against the world. True, when Autism is applied correctly, it can be a force for good, but it’s finding those who would give it a chance in the first place, (like trying to get a book published with a traditional publisher for example).

Even before I’d started in the world of work, secondary school for me was hell, as between 2004-2009, I suffered some of the worse abuse of my life, which still leaves me having bad dreams about it even to this very day. This is despite the fact that even as I write this, I’ve entered into the third decade in my lifetime, whilst grappling with a society that it is still very much blind to most aspects of neurodiversity. The Sixth form years for me was just a giant bag of laughs, and in my eyes, a complete waste of time, as I spent most of the school term trying my best not to be there in the first place. I knew exactly what I wanted to do with my life, the main trouble being that finding a course in school which involved driving, was near enough non-existent. Thanks to a change in school policy, education of subjects which were related to practical arts were confined to that of the colleges and university, and not mainstream school.

In short, not a single course taught you about driving skills as part of the school curriculum in any way shape or form, apart from the driving test itself, which I’d been desperate to do for ages, (having confused everyone into thinking that I wanted to drive bin lorries since the age of four). This came as somewhat of a blow, as I do feel that more education needs to be placed into teaching kids about driving, especially from the ages of sixteen to eighteen years old, and how you shouldn’t be tearing around on the roads trying to be some Lewis Hamilton wannabe. This actually proved to go in my favour, when during one day in my sixth form years, a very large and well-known national driving school brought a state-of-the-art driving simulator unit down to my secondary school, which gave those who were over the age of seventeen a chance to come and have a go at driving, in preparation to start taking driving lessons.

As I was a little younger than seventeen at the time, I knew that I would have a bit of a wait before I could start, although I was still allowed to have a go. Most of the kids in my group were very much of the whole, ‘let’s see how fast I can drive and get away with it’ sort of people. Predictably, (and with no great surprise to be honest), nearly all of the group managed to bin the cars before they’d even got to the first turning in the road, which was making the instructor sigh under his breath. When it came my turn to take the controls on the car simulator, everyone was almost of the opinion that I wouldn’t even be able to get out of the parking bay that the car was sitting in. To everyone’s complete amazement however, I not only managed to get the car out of the parking bay, but also onto the main road and even navigating my way through a town, without hitting anyone or anything.

After this, I then proceeded to turn into a country lane and managed to get up to fifty miles per hour, before the instructor was having to ask me to let someone else take over, fearing that I would be able to ace the simulator course before the rest of the group had been able to have a go. I wasn’t hardly surprised to see that the rest of the group was standing there open mouthed in amazement at me, wondering how ‘the spastic kid’, had managed to pull off better driving than they’d done. It just so happened that the legendary haulage company Eddie Stobart, had set up their own HGV simulator in the north of England, which I knew full well I had to go on as soon as I possibly could. This sadly never came to pass, as in order to train on the HGV simulator, you had to live within the Greater Manchester area, and be twenty-one years old, (even though a recent change in the law meant that an HGV licence could be passed and obtained at the age of eighteen).

This was from a previous law that stated that you had to be twenty-one years old to drive both HGVs and PSVs, (aka buses and coaches), although looking back at it now, I’m glad that I didn’t get to the Eddie Stobart simulator, because it seemed that fate had more twists and turns in store for me as I approached my twenty first birthday. If anyone was the hardest to convince that I was ready to start driving, it was my parents, who had both seen for themselves how keen I was to start driving any class of vehicle at the earliest possible moment. It wouldn’t be until after I’d left school that I gained my first proper driving license on a car in 2012, (which I managed to pass first time to the shock and surprise of everyone else). But within less than ten years from passing my car driving test, I would have taken and passed several other tests as well, including that of my HGV and motorcycle licence.

As you will find out as the book goes on, taking and passing my HGV test wasn’t just a lifelong ambition, but also an event which had arrived just in time, as world history was about to do a real number on us all. As we all know, the Covid-19 pandemic arrived in early 2020, in which I’d already racked up a number of hours with my HGV licence over the year 2019. But I hadn’t yet really been tested to the point that I would be during the Covid pandemic, which for me was a period of time which now I look back on and go, ‘I was there, I saw what happened, and I know I did my bit’. Even though everything would so far be pointing you towards thinking that my brain had moulded into trucking since the age of two, it’s important to understand that there was a single event which kickstarted my whole HGV journey. In order for everything that to come in the book to make sense, we need to wind the clock back to the month of January in 2018.

Back to a time when Covid-19 wasn’t the household name that it is today, to a time when I felt as if I was well on my way to having a stable and prosperous driving career. Of all things, it wouldn’t be Covid-19 which would bring an end to my first ever driving job, but a rather sadistic and very callous individual by the name of Helen. This is a chapter of my life which I would later come to know as ‘the Helen Incident’, (partially because the name of the person involved and responsible for the events in January 2018 was a woman called Helen). The Helen Incident is a bit of a misnomer, as it was an event that took place over a series of days, rather than just a single twenty-four-hour period. It was just after my twenty fifth birthday in January 2018, when it was still bitterly cold outside and my dedication to a company which had welcomed me in after some really dark days beforehand, was starting to go as frosty as the weather outside.

The string of events in the following days after my twenty fifth birthday would be the turning point, and the final straw that I needed to finally take action in pushing me towards getting my HGV licence, with the proviso of finally showing the world what I could really do. This was after having spent years of just being shoved into the box marked ‘normal people’, and told to get on with it. What would happen in the last week of January and into early February 2018, would change my life in ways that really only I will be able to understand, although I hope that in telling my story today, it will help you dear reader to understand that the events you’re about to read, are as solid and as real as you are. You’d like to think that the word ‘injustice’, is the sort of thing that has been eradicated from those who live in what we call ‘the western world’. Well, strap in, because I’m about to show you how incorrect and flawed the previous statement really is.

By January 2018, I felt as if everything was going my way, as I was still in a buzz from passing my twenty fifth birthday a few days beforehand, with the feeling that I was going to start getting cheaper premiums for things like motor insurance and the like. At this point, I’d been in the world of full-time work since 2011, which had certainly proven to be some very turbulent years indeed. As you can probably imagine, walking around with a little thing called ‘Autism’, did have its downsides from time to time, particularly when it came to the workplace. Don’t get me wrong, I’ve always prided myself on being an honest and hardworking person, with a considerable amount of determination under my belt. From 2014 to 2018, I’d been working for a bathroom company in my hometown of Hoddesdon, which up until that point had been the longest period of employment in a single workplace since leaving school back in 2011.

I’d had some interesting years working at the bathroom company, (which I won’t be naming directly for legal reasons, as I don’t want to be sued or anything crazy like that). I’d picked up some lifelong friends while working at the bathroom company, whilst managing to get myself settled down into a form of employment I could safely declare with conviction, that I was finally good at. This would all come to a rather crushing and devastating halt however, when in early February 2018, I would be called in for a disciplinary meeting with the human resources manager. The H.R. manager, a woman by the name of Helen, was your very typical ‘sadistic fascist hidden in plain sight’, with her policies of zero tolerance on bullying and workplace abuse. This of course was all a complete smokescreen however, as like with some people in a position of power, corruption was never far away, (and corruption was certainly at play during this incident).

I would say from what I knew of Helen, was that she would be classed as your bog-standard hypocrite, because Helen would make claims to be running a bully free environment, only for her too then commit acts of systematic bullying herself, on a group of individuals who were not exactly what you would call, ‘in the norm’. (You know the type I mean, the type where they come across as good and friendly, only to turn out to be a complete two-faced b*****d when you’re back is turned). This should give you a fairly good idea of the sort of person I was being forced to work under within a managements position. These would include those who were LGBT, from religious backgrounds, those with deformities, and of course (you guessed it), those on the Autism spectrum. Helen I’m sorry to say, was the sort of person who was a little bit like the cop Mark Furman in the O.J Simpson trial.

A man who was supposed to be a cop and law enforcer, but instead was about as racist as racist gets, with a rather unhealthy habit of using the ‘N’ word to describe those who were black or of African American descent. Although I would sadly never know the full truth and facts about what had happened that day, I’ve been able to piece together what could have happened behind the scenes from third party sources, and how Helen went about what she did to ensure the outcome of what happened. It’s worth remembering as well from what I said at the start of the book, that a lot of what I write on this incident has been down too manly third-party eye witness statements, and from mixed and varied accounts from witnesses years later after the incident occurred. Having said that, I’ve always been of the belief of who I know the victims are, and who are the perpetrators, and in some cases, the collaborators.

Although I’ve never had any form of solid concrete proof to support any of my claims or theories on this matter, it’s always been my belief that Helen had been waiting to get me back for a whistle blowing incident which involved both myself and Helen all the way back in 2017. You see, month’s earlier, I’d been a victim of workplace bullying from a colleague, so I’d decided to follow company procedure by reporting it all to the H.R department. Helen being the H.R manager in the company, it was her who picked up the case and asked me to come and talk to her in a meeting, which I did. It’s at this point, when I got my first taste of the sort of person that Helen was like, as this is when everything started to go downhill for me. You’d like to think that any self-respecting Human Resources manager would have taken this sort of complaint very seriously, as any kind of attack on an Autistic individual in the workplace could be considered as bullying.

Or even in some of the more severe cases, it could be considered as a hate crime, depending on what had happened, or what had been said. So, the sort of answer I am expecting to hear from Helen is, thank you for bringing this to my attention, I will speak with your colleague and find out what has happened. What I’m about to say may make some of you pull a funny face, and the rest of you will probably gasp, but Helen the H.R manager turns to me and says during the meeting, just rise above it Stuart. I know I probably didn’t look it at the time, but in my mind, I was completely and utterly dumbstruck. How was it that a qualified, capable, professional human resources manager, had just turned around to me and told me to quote ‘rise above it’. Just for a point for reference to everyone who is at a bit of a loss as to why I’m acting angrily about this, it might be a good idea if I explain why this statement from Helen made me so cross and angry.

To cut a long story short, turning around to an Autistic person and telling them to just ‘rise above it’ in any situation, is about as insulting as telling a vicar or a priest that God was a figment of their imagination, (that’s how insulting it is). It made me feel sick to my stomach, as I tried to comprehend what was going on around me. How could someone in Helen’s position do something like that, when anyone and everyone who is employed in any line of H.R work would tell you that when it comes to working with Autistic employee’s, you never ever tell them to just rise above things? That is just wrong, it is wrong on so many levels, that could almost be seen as a form of gross negligence in the extreme. I was already stressed to the eyeballs at this point as it was, as I could tell that some of my colleagues were starting to become sick and tired of seeing me on a daily basis, feeling as if I got special treatment and not having to do hard work.

(In truth, I did just as much work as what my colleagues were doing, it was just that it was being done in a capacity which they sadly didn’t see or understand, which didn’t really help my case). I did have a few good friends who stuck by me, but even with their help, I still felt as if I was on a downhill spiral from that moment onwards. If that wasn’t bad enough, Helen herself then went and placed herself in my bad books yet again a few months later, by choosing to single out and ignore a pressing concern of a good friend of mine by the same colleague who had insulted me. Feeling that enough was enough, I took my concerns straight to another manager who I trusted, who in turn, went straight to the C.E.O. I can only assume from then onwards that the C.E.O had come straight down on Helen like a tonne of bricks, after they’d discovered that I had been let down by Helen.

Although sadly no new information has come to light after this, I was later approached by my manager friend who told me that Helen had been spoken to, and that no repeat of the incident would ever happen again, although Helen was never made to apologise to me for what had happened. My best friend at the time, (who has asked me kindly not to be named in here), felt very grateful that I’d stood up for her to the management, which would come in very handy when it came my turn to face the H.R firing squad in January 2018. And so, it’s now time to go back to the events of January 2018, where I had been pulled up for a company disciplinary. The charge for which I had been accused of, was for misusing my company mobile phone, in which I was doing nothing more than calling my home phone number, to let my family know that I was safe and well, and that I was going to be late in from work.

This wasn’t technically something that people were encouraged to do, so in the company’s defence, I can understand why they would want to speak to me about it. In my defence however, my own personal phone never worked half the time, plus the fact that as I was driving, I couldn’t use my own personal phone as it wasn’t linked to the Bluetooth system. On the other hand, the company phone that I had was the only phone that was linked to the Bluetooth, and so it made more logical sense to use it to call home. The routes I was being sent on were the ones that nearly always took me a long way from home on a daily basis. This meant that I wasn’t getting back home and finished for the day before about 6pm in the evening, even though I’d started at around 7am in the morning. Now, I knew the I.T chap very well, who was a guy called Liam, (or Q as I nicknamed him from the James Bond films), because he knew all about technology and the like.

Liam had told me with certainty that the work phones were all on sim contracts, which included free calls and texts, so it wouldn’t have cost the company any money at all for me to call home to my family, to let them know that I was safe and going to be home late. Everyone that I spoke to in connection with the company phones situation was all of the same mindset, that they were all perfectly fine for me to use the company phone, and that it wasn’t a problem at all. You can just imagine that to my complete and utter surprise however, when in January 2018, I get called into the H.R office with their staff saying that apparently, I’ve managed to rack up a phone bill on the company phone of around £30. During the meeting that I had with the H.R staff, I told them straight that this couldn’t have been right, as I had been told that all of the calls and texts were free, so was unsure of how the £30 charge had come about.

But the H.R staff were still adamant that I had to pay the bill, which of course I did, so no harm done; or so I thought. Of course, what I didn’t know, was that this created the perfect excuse that Helen the hypercritical H.R managing bully had been looking for, since I’d reported Helen to my manager friend, who had in turn shopped Helen to the company C.E.O. You see, I’d blown the whistle on Helen to the company C.E.Os for feeling very strongly that the matter of bullying hadn’t been resolved, which Helen wasn’t prepared to stand for. As far as Helen was concerned, I was the aggressor and the one who had done wrong, so she was going to do everything in her power to make sure that I was thrown out of the company once and for all. I suppose looking back at it all now, I do have to shoulder a small amount of the blame on some of the points raised in this case, because I could have just kept my silence, and let Helen get away with what she’d said to me.

Whistleblowing can be an extremely dangerous thing to do in any line of work, or at any point in life, as I was soon to find out with Helen. I suppose it’s like one of those sorts of rhetorical question situations where you’re stuck whichever way you jump. Do you stay quiet and let it all happen, knowing that you’ll live with the guilt of your sins for the rest of your life? Or, do you stand up for yourself and others, to fight back against the oppression? The truth was that Helen was one of those sorts of people who didn’t like it when she didn’t get her own way, so little old Autistic me getting one up on a H.R manager, was like openly declaring an act of war as far as Helen was concerned. What happened next in the timeline of events is a bit of a blind spot in my memory, but the one thing that I can be certain on, is that I’d never dream of making threats towards anyone, especially one’s which involved harm or death in any way shape or form.

I’ve said what I’ve said in the previous sentence about never harming or making threats against people, because the next thing I know, I’m being called into the office again a day or so later after the phone call meeting. Only that this time, on a charge of something which was considered far more serious than a mysteriously racked up phone bill. What I’m about to describe next is going to sound so fictional that you will think that I’ve invented it; but let me reassure you now, it’s not. Everything your about to read from here onwards is a complete true story, because the one thing that I can guarantee you, is that you’re going to want to believe that it’s fictional and fabricated. This truly is a story which would make a Hollywood movie, or even an episode of a TV drama series any day. (Mind you, you’d probably think that about this whole book, but I shall leave that decision for you to decide dear reader).

When I walked into the disciplinary’s office, the first thing that struck me as strange, was the fact that Helen was sat on the opposite side of the desk. You’ll understand what I mean by that when I explain a little more about why I had been called upstairs, but for the time being, I was still puzzled by the scene that greeted me inside the office. Positioned up at the far end of the room, there were at least a further six or seven people sat there around the desk, some looking confused, others serious. To put it as politically correct as possible, Helen was one of these ladies who was on the larger end of the dress size scale, with blonde hair and a face which looked kind natured on the outside, but yet was concealing a very sinister and narcissistic mind behind it. Helen’s face seemed blank and empty, although I couldn’t help but notice a small flicker of a smile appearing at the edge of her mouth, as if she was pleased about something.

I knew straight away before I’d even sat down opposite to where Helen was sitting, that I was walking into an interrogation, as I half suspected that at any moment, I was going to have one of those bright desk lamps shone into my face, or else being forced to undergo some kind of psychological torture. (I know it all sounds crazy and obscene, but I’d almost compared Helen to a female version of the character Herr Flick from the TV series Allo Allo). Although when it came to sadism, it’s fair to say that Helen would’ve easily passed the entrance exam for the real-life Gestapo agency, (if she’d lived during the 1930/40s of course). On the tamer end of the scale, I think that Helen would’ve been far better off ploughing her time and energy into being a dominatrix, rather than a H.R manager. (She wouldn’t have needed to work very hard or act very much to convince people that she was a sadistic individual, that much I can be certain on).

I’m sure you know why you’re here Stuart was Helen’s response when I’d sat down in my chair opposite her, as I just stared back at Helen with the most disgusted look I could muster, feeling hatred boiling away inside of me from the injustice that I was being served with. The injustice that I speak of, was the fact that I had never received any kind of an apology from Helen for the way that she had handled my case a few months earlier, and also because of the fact that Helen had treated my friend in the way that she did when they had come forwards with a grievance. It’s almost a bit like being a police officer and watching a suspect walk out of a court of law having been declared not guilty, even though said police officer knows they’re as guilty as sin. I just sat there in silence facing Helen across the desk, as I knew full well that Helen was going to use anything that she could against me, in order to get me thrown out of the company.

Mind you, I unwittingly managed to break my own rules a few seconds later as I replied with, I’m not even talking to you, I don’t even want to look at you, because I was that disgusted by the fact that Helen had even decided to look at me, let alone try and engage me in a conversation. So, you don’t remember saying that you were ‘trained to kill’ replied Helen, again in the same voice as before, trying to act calm and collected, as I could tell that Helen had been affected by what I’d said to her a few seconds earlier. It was when the words ‘trained to kill’ were mentioned, that my blood really started to boil over. How dare you I thought to myself, how dare you put words in my mouth, when you know full well, I would never ever say anything like that aloud in front of anyone. After I’d finished thinking this, I immediately began to realise why there was a group of people at the far end of the room.

Although I have never been able to confirm this as fact, but I still feel to this very day that the six people at the end of the room had either been bullied, threatened, or else told that if they didn’t back Helen up, there would be trouble for them. This does seem to be my best theory to date, as I do know that out of the six people at the far end of the room, three of them were complete yes men, two of them were people who looked like they just been brought in as fake witnesses, and the last person was a man who clearly didn’t have a clue what he was doing there, or what was going on. It may seem daft to think this, but in some ways, it was at this point that I realised how big of a coward Helen really was. In truth, I was actually smaller in size then Helen was, so Helen could have very easily overpowered me if she wanted to. And yet here Helen was, with a whole room of essentially what you could call ‘bodyguards’, just to pick on someone like me.

Out of the six other people in the meeting room that day, five out of six of them I am prepared to grant free passes too, owing to later information which would come to light. The only individual that I still hold truly and completely responsible for going along with Helen’s blatant bullying, was a man called Craig, who despite having left the company around the time of the first Covid lockdown, managed to commit the very cardinal sin of escorting me back home, and then leaving me alone in my house. This was mere minutes after I’d told him that I wanted to kill myself. Back in the H.R room however, I could tell that Helen was finally exacting her revenge on me, after I’d reported Helen to the C.E.O; but I wasn’t going to give in that easily. Helen was just another workplace bully, just like all of the others that I’d had to face over the years, and they always say, ‘you should never let bullies win, stand your ground, and fight’.

I’m a fighter and you’re not getting the better of me, I thought to myself, as both myself and Helen engaged in a form of silent warfare, in a battle of wills to show that neither of us would back down. Again, I just sat there in silence, staring back at Helen across the table from me, waving my hand in a way that said, don’t play games with me, you’ve wanted me out of here ever since I grassed you up to the company management. I should wind the clock back a little bit for you dear reader, just so you’re not all sitting there scratching your heads, wondering what’s going on between myself and Helen. To cut a very long story short, someone, (I have an idea who it might be, but have no evidence to support my claims), had decided that it was a brilliant idea to invent a lie by saying to Helen that I had said quote ‘I was trained to kill’. I can safely say with confidence, that I have never been guilty of any kind of violence or threats towards anyone.

This also stands true of the fact that I have never made threats on anyone’s life in any way shape or form, because I understand all too well that in the modern day and age, such threats are taken very seriously by the police and other law enforcement agencies. Despite this however, Helen had taken it upon herself to use this false accusation to finally get back at me for reporting her in the first place. As plans go, you have to admit that it was a pretty good one, as even the most sinical of us would be left questioning whether you would believe someone in authority, or someone with a known learning difficulty like I was. Well, I’m afraid that this means that you’re being suspended from work, pending further enquires said Helen, as my brain just snapped in two, as the realisation of what was going on dawned on me. I knew that something of this nature was bound to come up, because how else would an individual like Helen try and get rid of me.

Up until that point, my company record had been exemplary, and I was a highly respected and well-loved member of the team, with certain members of staff thanking me personally for sticking around and helping them out when they needed it the most. But I would’ve never thought it to be possible, that a qualified human resources manager, would go as far as to create a lie, just to get rid of me from within the companies ranks, over the matter of that in the legal sense of things, would be considered as gross negligence. This is what I meant when I said before about this story being unbelievable and worthy of a good fictional crime drama, or even a ‘based on a true story’ Hollywood movie. Sorry to disappoint you all, but I’m afraid this isn’t fiction, it’s fact. It was at this point that my Autism sadly got the better of me, as every bone in my body was telling me that this was one cruel and drawn-out standoff feud that I wasn’t going to win.

I had to retreat to a safe place to try and come to terms with what was being said, which to many people, would’ve looked like I was running away. When an Autistic person pulls away from something, it’s never cowardice, or a lack of wills, but a safety mechanism to ensure that we don’t become overloaded or overwhelmed by what’s going on. Of course, this wasn’t what bullying sadistic Helen wanted me to do, and so begins the second surreal moment in the chain of events from that day, which would eventually lead up to where I would come to be in the present day. Just to make one point very clear here, but I am not a violent person, nor have I ever made any threats on anyone’s life in my entire lifetime. I have no criminal record, and have done my best wherever I go to work as dam hard as I can, with some people even going as far as to call me a saint, (although I don’t see myself as a saint, as I have messed up on occasions in the past).

So being accused of making threats on Helen’s life was in my mind, the greatest crime in the history of crimes thus far, as every single person present in the room at that exact moment in time, knew full well that I wasn’t that way inclined. Naturally, I was so disgusted and appalled by the fact that such slanderous accusations were being levied in my direction, that I stormed out of the room in disgust, making sure to let the door bang behind me as I went. You’d like to think that any self-respecting and sane member of human resources would have the common sense to back off, as they would have recognised that I wasn’t trying to run away, but instead retreat to a safe space to calm down. Considering the sort of character that Helen was like, and how I’ve described her in this book, my storming out of the room was exactly what Helen had been counting on all along, as it now gave her the so called ‘jurisdiction’, to do what she did to me next.

I managed to get as far as the lift too take me back downstairs, (because the H.R office was on the top floor of the warehouse at the time), before I was suddenly swamped by all of the people who’d been inside the office. This included Helen, who there and then, forced me to hand over my works vehicle keys to her, as this was the standard company protocol for people who had been suspended. So, this is where the mysteries really start, because I suspect that most of you will now be scratching your heads and saying, that doesn’t make any sense whatsoever. For one thing, this is a woman who has apparently made a very serious and quite outrageous accusation, telling me that I’ve supposedly ‘threaten to kill her’, bearing in mind that no-one has offered up a shred of evidence to support this claim. One thing that I do know for certain, was that I didn’t make any kind of death threats in any way shape or form towards anyone, let alone a H.R manager.

Sure, I have learned a few self-defence movements over the years, but that doesn’t mean that I’m trained to kill people, not in the slightest! It just means that I’m better at defending myself, rather than attacking, (which is something I’ve learnt to do in all aspects of my life). So, it does beg the imagination of why a person like Helen in her position as a H.R manager would say something like that, knowing that I was a peaceful and understanding person all round, and without a scrap of evidence to support her claims. I mean, let’s put it this way, if someone had made threats towards you, you’d ring the police up, wouldn’t you? You certainly wouldn’t be sat in the same room as the so-called person who’d made a threat towards you, or even chase said person into a lift to get some keys off of them, (which is exactly what Helen did that day). It’s fair to say that you’d have to be either completely mad, or completely stupid to pull off a stunt like that.

And yet the strangest thing was, not at any point either during or after the incident itself, was I contacted by the police, or had a visit from them for that matter. The police never even dispatched officers to come to the company on the day itself to conduct interviews, collect statements, or make any kind of official enquiries at all. This was a fact which was later pointed out to me by my solicitor, when my family spoke with him about taking the company to an unfair dismissal hearing, aka a tribunal. I did feel a bit silly that I hadn’t thought about this at the time, (but that’s hardly the most pressing concern while your blood is running close to boiling point at the injustice that you’re being served with). I’m glad now that this point was raised about the police, as it would make a lot of sense to what happened next, and that I will always have a debt of gratitude to my solicitor, for his wonderful help and support during that time.

This has always been my working theory on this event, (as sadly the only people who know the full truth of what went on behind closed doors will never likely tell me). I suspect now that the real reason why the police weren’t summoned that day, was because Helen knew full well that the whole thing had been fabricated as a lie, whilst also knowing full well that Helen herself and her associates inside the meeting room, would have all been looking at a charge of wasting police time, if that particular fact had come to light during an official inquiry. Another rather interesting point to mention, is the amount of people in the room with me at the time when I was being, so called, ‘questioned’. From what my solicitor explained to me about the rules of the workplace, company disciplinary procedures have a very strict set of rules to follow, which are always changed and updated as new rules and laws come into effect.

But I certainly don’t remember reading in my company handbook about six to seven separate people having to be present during a disciplinary meeting, as these are usually done with a maximum of four people. These include the accuser, the accused, a