Author to give £2m to help autistic children

Published on 09/05/2004 01:00

BESTSELLING author Nick Hornby is to donate more than £2m towards building a school for autistic children, including his 10-year-old son.

Hornby is to hand over the lucrative fee from the film rights to his book, How To Be Good, when it is shot later this year.

"With such a title it somehow seemed appropriate to donate the money," Hornby said.

"I admit I’ve been holding out on signing anything in order to get up the price."

The novel tells the story of a woman doctor having a mid-life crisis while her husband experiences a spiritual conversion.

The author, who also wrote Fever Pitch and High Fidelity, will hand over the first 500,000 from Columbia Pictures to help with start-up costs at a temporary north London school, called TreeHouse.

He will donate a much larger sum once the film is made for a permanent building to teach around 80 children aged from four to 18.

The school, set to open in 2007, has a total estimated cost of 7m.

"I simply feel that film money is like free money," he said.

"It’s like a gift which comes down from the skies on top of the money that I get for actually writing the book. That’s why I feel I can give it away."

Until Hornby’s promise of a donation, there was serious doubt whether the school could find funding.

"It’s a fantastically generous gift," said Christine Asbury, chief executive of the TreeHouse Trust.

"It comes at just the right time. We will also shortly be announcing an appeal for funds we need to ensure the new school."

The trust was set up in 1997 for four severely autistic children, including Hornby’s son Danny. However, the children have been housed in five different temporary homes.

Hornby’s son was not diagnosed with autism until he was two.

Hornby, a prominent campaigner for children who suffer from autism, said he was devastated when a doctor first broke the news to him.

"It was all a million words a second and devastating information," he said.

He has admitted that the difficulties in bringing up an autistic child played a "huge part" in the break-up of his marriage.