Share and care

DAWN Hall has found out the hard way that she can't afford to take her eyes off her son William for even a second. She was distracted for a moment once last year. The next thing she knew, there was the sound of a car horn coming from the lane on which their farmhouse home stands. "I thought 'it must be the cows'," she says. "The next thought was 'it must be William!' Sure enough, it was."

To her horror, she found her six-year-old son - who doesn't like wearing clothes - had run outside naked and was chasing the white lines down the middle of the road.

It is one of countless scrapes he has got in to. Another time, after being distracted for a moment, she found him coming downstairs clutching a handful of broken glass.

Once he managed to wrench a gas fire away from the wall, causing a gas leak.

William is autistic. It manifests itself in many ways. There is his dislike of clothes; the way he loves to touch different fabrics; his obsession with switching on and off anything electrical; the tantrums when he is not allowed to have his way. Sometimes, says Dawn with a laugh, he will even go up to people and start smelling them.

For Dawn and her husband Roger, however, the most exhausting aspect of his behaviour is that he will never sit still. He is always on the move, whether it is chasing ducks, switching things on and off, or simply running backwards and forwards touching things. Combine that with the fact that he's got no sense of danger, and it is easy to see how he can be a handful.

"He's a lovely little boy," says Dawn. "He's full of life. But it is exhausting!"

Just how exhausting is obvious from even a brief visit to the Halls' farmhouse home near Acaster Malbis. We're lucky, says Dawn, because at least he is wearing clothes for once. But trying to get a photo of him isn't easy.

He runs backwards and forwards in the farmyard ceaselessly: and when lifted up on to bales of hay in a barn patrols backwards and forwards along the edge of the bales of hay, without stopping for a moment. "Sit down?" suggests Dawn, tentatively. William screams at the idea.

The worst thing is that, because of constantly needing to keep an eye on William, Dawn and Roger feel they can't give their seven-year-old daughter Grace the attention she deserves.

Roger is a relief milkman on his father's farm, and also runs a camp site: which means very often Dawn is left looking after the children on her own. "You have to do whatever William dictates," she says. "There was a little friend of Grace's who used to come for meals sometimes, but if I'm here on my own, I cannot cope." As for a personal life of her own - the only time she gets to be herself, Dawn says, is when William is at school in the special unit at Hob Moor. "I live my life in the daytime, because I can't go out at night!" she says.

There is no doubting Dawn and Roger's love for William: you only have to see the way Dawn's eyes follow him around to see that. But any family faced with the constant strain of having to look after a child like William needs an occasional break if life is not to become unbearable.

Thanks to the Sharing Care scheme run by City of York Council there is now one day every two or three weeks when Dawn, Roger and Grace do get to do things together without having to constantly worry about keeping an eye on William. It's the day - usually a Saturday - when he goes to stay with John Barrett and Anna Swailes.

John is a 30-year-old researcher in the biology department at York University: Anna a 26-year-old project worker for the Children's Society. They live in a little terrace in Holgate that couldn't be more different from the Halls' sprawling farmhouse.

And for a few blessed hours every few weeks, as Sharing Care volunteers, they take over the role of "parents" to William so the rest of the little boy's family can have a bit of a break.

"It's unbelievable, the difference it makes," Dawn admits. "We do sometimes have people who come to the house for a couple of hours.

"But this means for example we can have people for dinner, and we don't have to worry about William. Or we can just sit in the quiet and enjoy."

It took a while for William to get used to John and Anna. They came to see him in his home first. But still, the first time Dawn took him to their home in Holgate, he was wary. "He was unsettled because he was in a strange environment," says Dawn admits.

"He didn't know why he was there, and he really just wanted to leave. He came in, went around the house, looked in every room, then decided he had done that and could leave."

William may not be able to talk; but he is no slouch at letting people know what he wants "If he wants to go home, he picks up his coat," laughs Anna. "That's a sign he wants to go home now."

William has now got used to his "home away from home", however. He runs around the house, touching things, turning things on and off. John and Anna take it in turns to watch him, and when they can, take him out for the day - to the local park, or to the National Railway Museum.

It can be hard trying to predict what he will like. "Sometimes he loves the park, playing on the slides," John says. "Other times he won't go on them at all. But we don't mind. We're happy for him to do whatever he wants."

Looking after William, even for one Saturday every three weeks, is hard work, the pair admit. "We have a quiet night the night before when we know he's coming next day!" jokes Anna. "He can be quite a handful," says admits. "He's like no other little boy you've met."

But neither of them would give up their regular days with William. In fact, once they have moved into a new, larger house nearby in Holgate, they are hoping to start taking him for the occasional overnight stay. That will continue, John says, even when, as they hope to do, they have children of their own.

Why? Are they saints? "We're extremely fond of William," John says. "We really enjoy his company. He's very energetic, unpredictable, very inquisitive - and great fun."

They are also fully aware of what it means to Dawn and her family to have William taken off their hands for a few hours. "It is tiring for us for six hours," John says. "I cannot really comprehend what it must be like to have a disabled child with a condition like autism to look after full time.

"We're making a very small contribution of our time - and really enjoying having him - and it can make a massive difference."

Dawn is just grateful for the few hours she gets to pay a bit more attention to Grace and Roger. "The fact that they are going to have him for a night occasionally will be unbelievable," she says with a laugh.

"The first time it happens we won't want to go far. But once he has settled in, we will take Grace to a hotel with a pool!"

Updated: 09:34 Wednesday, March 24, 2004