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‘He nails it on the first take’: how the Beatles helped my autistic son find his voice

After John Harris’s son was diagnosed, conversation always seemed focused on the things he would struggle with. But a shared passion for playing music grew into something James could do – brilliantly

Its mixture of discordant guitar, growling vocals and knock-kneed drumming, I suspect, might strike him as curious and funny, like a big, monster-centred production number from Sesame Street or The Muppet Show. He tries to pick up one big book that breaks down the band’s career into a daily chronicle, and then gets very excited when I intervene, stopping at a page that contains a picture of the coach that had been driven around the West Country during the making of Magical Mystery Tour. The 14-year-old who bought his first two albums is still inside me somewhere: when I offer him tea and custard creams and we throw around the names of climate protesters, Labour MPs and trade union leaders, I feel a frisson of starstruck amazement.

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