Sally Bercow is best known as the outspoken wife of Commons Speaker John â€" and her turn on Celebrity Big Brother.
But she is less known for her role as mum to an autistic son, Oliver, now eight.
Here Sally, 43, talks about his diagnosis and how she and her MP husband deal with his condition.
We first realised Oliver had a problem when he was about six months old.
Little things alerted me â€" like the fact he wouldn’t make eye contact with me and his eyes just kept drifting away.
I thought this was a bit odd, but because he was my first born, I didn’t know what to expect.
Both my mum and my mother-in-law said: ‘Don’t worry, children develop in different ways’, which is true.
So for a time, I dismissed my worries. When he was 18 months, we went for a walk and he was absolutely obsessed with looking at all the drains we passed.
It seemed really odd. We went to see our GP, but there was no thing obvious they could pick up.
I just thought Oliver was slightly eccentric, but again I had nothing to compare him to. I thought it would all come right in the end.
But he was very late to walk and talk, and by two-and-a-half, he wasn’t speaking or even babbling.
We went back to the doctor and they thought he might have something called developmental verbal dyspraxia.
That was really worrying because if he had it, he would have to rely on computer-generated voice technology to be able to communicate.
That was luckily ruled out when he finally started talking at three. His first word was ‘taxi’ and within a week he was saying sentences.
It was astonishing. It was as if it was all there, locked in, and a key had been turned.
All the same, I was still sure something was wrong.
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I began to think about autism, even though I’d read up on it before and thought it couldn’t be that as he didn’t show all the signs of it.
For instance, he seemed to have a well-developed sense of humour, which I understood many children with autism don’t have.
So when he was three we took Oliver to a leading expert in autism.
She did a series of tests and games to get him to communicate and diagnosed there and then that he had it.
John and I were both really shocked and shaken. I hadn’t wanted to think that there was anything wrong with my child.
Oliver has ‘high functioning’ autism, which can be often compared to Asperger syndrome.
It means he doesn’t have learning difficulties and is a ‘bright’ child but does have difficulties communicating and empathising.
The main thing Oliver finds difficult is making friends and communicating.Â
That’s the really heartbreaking part for me, that he might b e lonely. I find that really, really sad.
He’s not good with new situations and he has to know what he’s doing or he just panics.
We used to go to the supermarket in John’s Buckingham constituency soon after Oliver was diagnosed.
He would want to walk around the shop in a certain way and if we didn’t, then he’d have a major meltdown.
John was quite embarrassed at first when this happened. And people in the store â€" his constituents â€" must have thought that I was a bad parent and unable to control my child properly.
But I wanted to say to them, ‘We’re not bad parents and he’s not being naughty, he’s being autistic’.
We found ourselves often explaining to strangers that he was autistic and it seemed that we were justifying ourselves all the time.
When I tell people Oliver has autism, some think he must have learning difficulties.
I remember one of my friends saying ‘Does that mean he’s a bit slow?’ I said, ‘No, but he does have problems communicating’.
Oliver’s eight now and he’s the eldest, so he’s a role model for Freddie, who’s six and Jemima, who’s four.
So when he’s having a meltdown or being rude, which is part of his autism, they’ll copy him and think that’s normal.
So at times like that I have three children ac ting like they’re autistic.
We were told one in 100 people has it. Some people think you can grow out of autism, but you can’t â€" it’s something you have all your life.
I’ve never looked for a cure. I’ve had the odd Twitter argument with TV presenter Melanie Sykes about this.
I really feel for her as she has an autistic son and is looking for a cure. But there isn’t one and it’s dangerous to start thinking there is.
Oliver goes to a mainstream school but has a special teaching assistant.
He is aware he’s slightly different to other children in his class and is accepting of that.
We told him because he’d have realised anyway. We didn’t want him being told by someone else.
I used picture books to answer all his questions. I think he was relieved to discover why he found certain things hard, like making friends.
John and I both support the charity Ambitious about Autism, which has given us invaluable support and advice, and we’re both parent patrons.
It was knowing I could help the charity that made me decide to do Celebrity Big Brother last summer.
I knew John would be against it. Politicians are cautious people and can only see bad things coming from it.
He asked why I couldn’t do a sponsored swim or something. But I knew I’d be given £100,000 for the charity which matters most to me, so I had to do it.
People say you shouldn’t put a label on your child, but we’re proud and pleased to say Oliver has autism.
It’s not something that should be hidden.
It is a disability and, yes, it is difficult sometimes, but so is being the parent of any child, whether they’ve got a disability or not.
Oliver is very rewarding in many ways and extremely annoying in others, as are all children.
He just has a different way of being. And I wouldn’t ever change him.
To find out more about Ambitious about Autism, visit www.AmbitiousAboutAutism.org.uk.
Its current ‘Finished At School campaign’ highlights the issue of what people with autism do after they leave education.
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