Laura Richmond

Like many autistic people, Laura Richmond has always felt like the proverbial square peg amid a sea of round holes. She’s never really fit into the parameters of any recognisable career, and generally she just makes it up as she goes along. She completed a PhD in medieval history in 2017. She has continued to publish historical research, and she has been a regular contributor and an advisory editor at the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. Currently, she’s a researcher, campaigner, and consultant who works to improve mental health care, especially for parents and families. She uses her own lived experience of autism and complex PTSD and works in partnership with several charities and universities. She also runs a dolls’ hospital. Her memoir, All My Worldly Joy, will be published by Boundless in September 2025. She lives in Southampton with her 11-year-old son and a splodgy cow bum of a cat.

An autistic woman is facing an ethical dilemma over her preference for drinking out of one particular mug, it has been revealed. Lottie Fitzgerald, 35, from Southsea, has developed a strong attachment to a blue studio pottery mug she was given last Christmas. She reports...

Laura Richmond

Autistic woman worried her mugs have realised she has a favourite