Edward and Emily and the Part Time Genius of Mr Fry is a story that came to Brian shortly after his mother passed away and tells of a man with autism in the 1950s before diagnosis was available and the difficulties and opportunities this presents to his life. The story, set in 1954, tells of a family who run a local shop making colour lights that runs into difficulties and following the shop’s financial failure and collapse how the father has a mental breakdown and is admitted to hospital. Father used to regularly visit a Toy Shop in Bath with Emily where they would sit on the floor with teddy bears imagining a wonderful teddy bear world full of lots of magical stories.
They then move house to Corbridge in Northumberland and discover a magical world of teddy bears that live underneath the village called Bearbridge. Emily makes friends with an eight foot teddy bear from this magical world called Edward and have many magical adventures together.
Eventually Mr Fry enters the story and provides the funds for Emily to start a new shop which she hopes will return her father to her making magical coloured lanterns like he used to do in Bath.