I was talking to a parent of an autistic boy, and he was telling me about how his wife had tried a recipe for chocolate muffins which included aubergines. The idea being that surreptitiously she was feeding their son vegetables. Now I see the benefit of this, but ultimately they, like me, will have to support their son in learning how to eat healthily without going to such extreme measures. For obvious reasons.

My first attempt at getting professional help with my son's diet was through the NHS. I got a referral from his pediatrician. It took three months before I got an appointment for my son. The dietitian spent the precious 45 minutes we had going over the questions that had already been asked in a form that I had been sent prior to our meeting. She then advised me to try to encourage him to eat better, and made another appointment six months hence. Not very helpful. I needed to learn 'techniques' and 'strategies' for how to encourage my son to eat better. She could have told me everything she covered in the meeting over the phone. I was less than encouraged to return.

Some weeks later I received a letter from the child psychologist telling me about a new lottery funded charity that was starting in the city. They were being set up to specifically support autistic children. She told me to contact them pronto and get to the top of the list. This I duly did. Within a few weeks my son was allocated a case worker. After the initial meeting of signing forms and answering questions and so on the new regime began. All sessions were to take place in our home.

Few people at that time, on first meeting my son, were relaxed and comfortable in his company (no fault of his). His case worker was very relaxed. On their first meeting (let's call her Kate) it was as if they both already knew each other. Each session started with play and Kate was able to learn about the things my son was interested in. It was after the third session that she introduced the subject of food, by which time she was chatting to him like they were old friends. Kate asked my son if he would like to share a picnic with her every week so that they could try new foods. He agreed, and she asked me if I could have those foods ready for her visits. So every week for about five or six weeks they would go outside and lay a blanket out in our backyard and enjoy a picnic together. He tried ham, apple, rice, pizza, pasta bolognaise, chicken, grapes, orange even. As I watched them from the window of our flat (we had moved into a place of our own by this time) my heart was doing that somersault thing again ...