Great and Unfortunate Things

‘You did it, didn’t you, Jason?’ Mum asked.‘No, Giff,’ I told her. ‘We did. We did it . . .’When Jason Arday was thirty-seven years old, everything changed. He made international news by becoming the youngest Black professor in the almost thousand-year history of the University of Cambridge. But that remarkable achievement is only part of his great and unfortunate tale. He grew up in a council house in south London with his parents and two brothers. Diagnosed with autism and global developmental delay at the age of three, he spent much of his non-verbal childhood navigating a system that struggled to understand him. Doctors and teachers believed there was ‘no one in there’. But Jason’s mother, Giff, refused to accept the limits others placed on her son. With the faith of his family and the support of a handful of extraordinary friends and mentors, Jason slowly found his voice. He spoke his first word at eleven, learned to read at eighteen, and discovered a passion for education and hel