“A change is as good as a rest” – Christian Gleaner and Domestic Magazine 1825 

There can be no better or more attention-grabbing way to start an article than with a quote from an obscure and long defunct religious magazine dating from the reign of George IV.  

I will have been specialising in tax for 40 years come 2026, but I have been autistic for a lot longer than that, because autism is a lifelong condition. Having said that, I only became aware of my autism just over a decade ago, when I was diagnosed in my early 50s.  

I decided to embrace the diagnosis and learn as much about autism as I could, and as detailed below, I have since been fortunate enough to be able to share that knowledge with others, autistic or otherwise, through various media and organisations. This is the brief story of how that came about. 

Before I joined The Green Accountants in April 2022, I was already an autism peer mentor on post-diagnostic courses in Trafford, South Manchester and an occasional deliverer of autism awareness training to customer facing staff of various organisations in Greater Manchester.  

I had long harboured ambitions to do more autism-related work, and because it suited both The Green Accountants and I for me to work on a part time basis 3 days a week, the opportunity to explore this arose. And I have exploited that opportunity for all it is worth! 

An important element of my arrangement with The Green Accountants was that I would work Monday, Wednesday, Friday each week. With apologies for the language, apart from avoiding what I am reliably told is now referred to by some full-time employees as a “TWAT” (Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday), this has also meant that there is always something different to look forward to the following day. 

When you are fortunate enough as I am to do two things that you love for a living, give that many people never get to do one, that is a very powerful incentive to get out of bed in a morning and go to work. 

Since April 2022 I have added the following autism-related activities to my ‘portfolio career’: 

• Qualified autism one to one peer support worker 

• Qualified Anna Freud mental health and autism trainer 

• Peer mentor trainer 

• Chair of a National Autistic Society / Greater Manchester Autism Consortium monthly online autism discussion group 

• Approved Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism Tier 2 autism expert trainer 

• Interviewer for the British Library / United Response “Our Life Stories” project, which led to me being featured in a Channel 4 News item earlier this year 

• Co-chair of the Trafford Autism Partnership, responsible for co-ordinating autism services in Trafford 

• I am also (hopefully) about to become an approved Oliver McGowan Mandatory Training on Learning Disability and Autism Tier 1 lead facilitator within the next few weeks 

Given my work schedule, I do my level best to ensure that any autism-related work where timing lies within my power takes place on a Tuesday or Thursday. Although many of the organisations I work with are extremely co-operative in this respect, presumably recognising me as a “TAT” (see above), clearly it is not always possible to ensure that everything I do in relation to autism neatly falls on one of those two days. 

It is here that the flexibility of The Green Accountants is a godsend. Although I am sometimes required to take holiday at short notice to fulfil autism-related engagements, or to swap around my working days to accommodate these, the firm is always extremely understanding and helpful in this respect, for which I am very grateful. I could not do all of the autism-related things I do without that co-operation and flexibility. 

One further feature of The Green Accountants ‘employee-friendly’ approach is the availability of 2 volunteering days per year for each employee. One of these is traditionally a ‘staff bonding’ day spent litter picking at Rivington Pike, which is particularly important in an organisation flexible enough to allow staff to work from home, or in my case to ‘squat’ in the Nat West Accelerator Hub in Manchester. 

The other volunteering day is available for staff to use for a ‘good cause’ of their choice. In 2024 this enabled me to co-present a session on mental health and autism with one of my peer mentor colleagues to the Trafford Community Mental Health Team. As the NHS Trust concerned could only afford to pay one of us, using my volunteering day meant that my colleague could be paid in full for his time. 

This year I am using my volunteering day to attend and observe an Oliver McGowan Tier 2 training session presented by Happy Smiles Training, an organisation with which I am about to start to work. This avoids any issues around whether Happy Smiles should pay me for my time (they shouldn’t) which is very helpful to all concerned. 

My experience of a portfolio career has been such that I warmly recommend it to others, but it only really works with an understanding and accommodating employer, which I am fortunate enough to have at The Green Accountants.  

– Mark Simpson