Jason Arday story has been challenged by former primary school classmates after he said he was unable to speak until he was 11 years old. Jonathan Stewart said he remembered Arday as a chatty child at Heathbrook primary school, creating a direct clash over a central part of the Cambridge academic’s memoir and resignation letter.
The dispute matters because Arday’s account sits at the centre of Great and Unfortunate Things, published by Simon & Schuster in the US on Tuesday, and because his own resignation letter said Cambridge was something he could scarcely have imagined as an autistic child. The memoir says he only learned to read and write aged 18.
Jonathan Stewart on Heathbrook
Stewart said Arday was known as the class clown at Heathbrook primary school. He said, “He was always cracking jokes. He was the comedian guy, he would even put on voices.” He also said Arday would sing the jingle from the 90s advert for Baby All Gone dolls.
Stewart added, “I don't remember too much about him but I certainly recollect him being able to speak.” A second unnamed man gave a similar recollection, saying he remembered Arday being able to speak. Those accounts directly conflict with Arday’s description of a childhood marked by severe speech difficulty.
Jason Arday and Katrina
Arday wrote that he was unable to speak until he was 11 years old and that the local council was on the verge of pulling his speech therapy support because he had made so little progress. In his memoir, he said, “But miraculously, just a few days shy of my 12th birthday, I spoke. It was at the start of one of my sessions, and Katrina [his speech therapist] had just said: ‘Hello, Jason.’ At that moment, I was fiddling with my hearing aid, which was bothering me, and then I took it out of my ear and said hello back to her.”
He also wrote that he “said bits of words and made various noises out of context.” Nick Clark backed that account, saying, “As a boy, I remember Jason not speaking and being regularly removed from class for additional support throughout his” school years. Mike Freeman also supported Arday’s version of events.
Great and Unfortunate Things in the UK
The dispute comes after interviews with former schoolmates produced conflicting accounts of Arday’s childhood. That leaves the memoir, and the account attached to his rise to Cambridge, under scrutiny from readers trying to sort memory from narrative.
Great and Unfortunate Things is due to be published in the UK on 27 August. The unresolved issue is not the publication date but the record itself: what evidence can reconcile the conflicting memories about when Jason Arday first spoke?
