‘My autistic sons have taught me so much’

James Hunt used to spend his days commuting to London, where he ran a successful marketing firm.

But his children Jude and Tommy were diagnosed as autistic when they were toddlers, and he later decided to care for them and his parents full-time.

James, from Burnham-on-Crouch in Essex, started blogging about their lives nine years ago and now has more than a million followers on social media.

Here, in his own words, James speaks about his hopes for the future for his teenage sons.

When my eldest son Jude was a baby, he was slow to crawl and didn’t respond to his name. He used to stare out of the window, he was quite distant and almost in a different world.

His mum Charlotte, my ex-wife, first raised concerns when he was eight months old but I just thought he was a bit behind because he was premature.

We went back to the doctor quite a few times before we got an autism diagnosis in 2009 when he was 18 months old.

At the time, the information out there was very clinical, most things we were reading were from the NHS website and medical journals. I felt like I couldn’t take it in and I had so many unanswered questions.

Three years later we went through the same diagnosis with Tommy at a similar age.

I knew a lot more about autism than when we had Jude, but the boys have always been so different.

I didn’t enjoy the first year of Tommy’s life as much as I could have done because I spent so much time watching him and looking for signs.

He hit certain milestones much quicker than Jude but he wouldn’t make eye contact and would get easily frustrated and enjoyed playing alone.

Around the same time, when Jude was four, he started having huge meltdowns and was physically hurting himself.

Jude is non-speaking, so it’s very difficult for him to explain what’s wrong. That was the hardest period of my life.

He used to wake up in the night screaming and hitting himself. Thankfully as Jude has gotten older, and we’ve learnt more about how to meet his needs, this has got much better.

Unfortunately at the time Tommy was a huge trigger for him because he was loud and unpredictable. His self-harming would scare Tommy so we used to have to keep them apart a lot.

In 2016, my wife Charlotte and I sadly decided to separate. We took the incredibly difficult decision to split Jude and Tommy up and we felt guilty, like we were failing.

But Jude was immediately like a different child, you could sense his anxiety going, so we knew it was the right decision.

I live in an annexe at my parents’ house and help care for my dad who has Parkinson’s and my mum, who has dementia, though she is now in a home.

It’s opposite my ex-wife’s home and I have one of the boys for several nights a week and then we swap over, and I have the other one. They both need one-to-one care and it’s impossible for them to live together.

You never imagine life like that. I don’t know if they will ever be able to live together but they will always be part of each other’s lives.

I wish I could be with both of them at the same time, and I don’t get much free time, but this is the best thing for them right now. It has probably made being a single parent easier for me because I’m never alone.

Their school is helping them to do more fun things together like trampolining and eating lunch together.

Jude is now 16 and loves music so we go on long car drives listening to the radio. It’s one of the few places where he feels safe and can relax.

There have been times he’s been too anxious to do that and we were housebound but at the moment he’s doing OK.

Tommy is 13, and he is cheeky, mischievous, funny, and curious about everything around him. He loves looking at books and puzzles. He isn’t fully verbal but he uses a communication device.

I recently had one of the best days I’ve ever had with Jude and Tommy.

In the past, when we have tried to do anything to celebrate Christmas, it has never gone well, it was too overwhelming for them. But we went to see Father Christmas and made such special memories.

Nine years ago I began sharing stories from our lives online, on a weekly blog. Then I started Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok accounts.

It was initially a way to show friends and family what our life was really like. Jude and Tommy struggled with social occasions, so we stopped going.

I could never find the words to explain, and I wanted to show how proud I was of them, so I started writing instead.

I didn’t realise how much our stories would resonate with others, or how much it would help me.

I learned so much more about autism, connected with people all over the world and discovered a passion for helping other families.

I’ve been lucky that I’ve been able to make a living through social media. I had to give up my previous job to be there for the boys.

I started a clothing line last year, with positive messaging around autism, disabilities and neurodivergence. I love getting messages from people saying they have bumped into someone wearing one of the hoodies, and it started a conversation.

I opened a shop in Burnham-on-Crouch where we stock the clothes and wrap and pack and send out the orders.

It’s somewhere for people in the community to visit, we have a sensory room in the shop and we get lots of parents coming in who want to have a chat.

Everyone working in the shop is a parent, carer or is autistic, so they can share their experiences with customers.

I always try to focus on the positives and not think too far ahead but there are days when my mind runs away with me.

It will be a huge challenge when the boys leave school when they are 19.

That’s massively scary because suddenly you have to trust a whole new bunch of people.

There is a part-time college I hope they can go to but it’s a huge unknown and there will be big decisions to make.

You feel like you have to live forever to look after them, and that is the biggest fear for many parents.

Jude and Tommy will need life-long support, and I’ve started to realise I might not always be able to provide that for them.

I don’t know what the future will look like, but I know I need to think about how to help them live as independently as they can, and prepare for the days when I’m not here.

Autism has meant we’ve had some of the highest highs, and experienced some lows far lower than I ever knew were imaginable.

It has taught me to cherish and enjoy the simple things and I just want the boys to be happy.

Looking back at how I felt when they were diagnosed, I would like to tell myself it’s all going to be OK.

Those first few years can be a really scary and emotional time. You feel like you have no idea what you’re doing.

Don’t bottle everything up, find people to open up to. Your friends and family want to help, they just don’t know how to yet.

You will go through the most challenging and difficult days of your life but you will learn so much from your boys and your love for them will get you through.

As told to Charlie Jones