My Grandfathers Brother

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I was wondering if I should ask this or not but... I decided to.

My parents and grandparents were talking about him on Christmas day and my grandparents mentioned how eccentric he was. They mentioned him lining things up by the window, having seven toothbrushes because he hated the feeling of one that wasn't completely dry, he has never been married or had a girlfriend (pretty big deal for his generation). When I met him (He lives in Melbourne, I live in Adelaide) he didn't talk much to anybody and stimmed slightly. When I talked to him on the phone we kept interrupting each other, neither of us knew when he were supposed to talk.

What I'm getting at is, this guy sounds rather Autistic. If I remember correctly, if somebody in a family has Autism the chances of anybody else in that family getting it is higher. That interested me, it could explain why I have it.

He even had an obsession, stamp collecting, he had thousands of dollars worth of stamps until his only friend stole them while he was in hospital. He never got them back.

He hasn't been diagnosed (obviously, this man is 89 years old). But he has many traits.

Anybody else think there's a chance that he is Autistic?

quite possibly

Its pretty obvious my late lets call him uncle probably had aspergers.

Ohh that's interesting. My mum was telling me about her father's brother and it sounds as though he was an aspie too - he never left home, never got married, had a massive coin collection, learnt Persian. And my mum's father himself seemed to have aspie features to a moderate extent. And his son (my uncle) may have AS, and he has a son who has been diagnosed with autism. So almost all the men on my mum's side have features or are in the spectrum.

It's interesting to look at traits of Autism that family members have, I myself used to have a coin collection actually.

The worst thing about my... grandfathers borhters (is there another word for that) is that his collection, worth over ten thousand dollars was stolen by his best friend while he was in hospital, he asked his friend to look after his house and his stamps were gone and his friend had left when he got back.

Your grandfather's brother would be your great uncle. Yes, he certainly does sound as if he could be on the spectrum.

That's so sad. After all those years of collecting to have it all wiped away by someone you trusted.

He hasn't been the same since his collection was stolen, even more withdrawn...

Still, I would think that yes, he is on the spectrum.

Can't the thief be tracked down by the police and criminal charges pressed?

I agree! How long ago was this? If it was recent enough, you could probably persuade your great-uncle to at least report it. The police mightn't worry too much about simple theft, but when the value reaches thousands and tens of thousands, and when there's an obvious suspect, surely they would at least look into it.