The Long Weekend 1897-1919: Part of a Life

296 Pages·1982·10.399 MB·English

by  Wilfred R. Bion

THE LONG WEEK-END
1897-1919

THE LONG WEEK-END
Part of a Life
WILFRED R. BION
EDITED
BY
FRANCESCA BION
KARNAC BOOKS
LONDON/NEW YORK
First published in 1982 by Fleetwood Press
Reprinted 1985
Reprinted in 199 1, 2005 by
H. Karnac (Books) Ltd.
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By arrangement with Francesca Bion and Mark Paterson
Copyright O 1982 by The Estate of W. R. Bion
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in
a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior written
permission of the publisher.
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A C.I.P. for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 91 7885 15 78555 07050 0 070 5
Printed and bound by Antony Rowe Ltd, Eastbourne
Bion family crest
'Nisi dominus frustra'
'Except the Lord build the house, they labour in vain
that build it : except the Lord keep the city, the
watchman waketh but in vain.'
Psalm 127. i
FOREWORD
Wilfred Bion was born in Muttra, in the United Provinces of India,
in 1897. Many generations of his family (of Huguenot descent) had
served in India-as missionaries, in the Indian Police, and in the
Department of Public Works. At the age of eight he was sent to
England to attend preparatory school, never again to return to
India. All his life he retained a strong affection for the country of
his birth; he died in November 1979 two months before a planned
visit to Bombay.
His autobiography was left unfinished, but the years covered by
this book form a distinct period which ended with demobilization
just before he went up to Oxford to read History. He felt then that
he had to start life again, building on unsure foundations. He
regarded himself as uneducated, out of touch with the world
outside school and the army, and demoralized by his experience of
war. Nevertheless his outstanding athletic ability in rugger and
swimming saved the day-just as it had done during his
schooldays.
Although he felt that the war had left him unable to take advantage
of the opportunities offered at the university, he always recalled
with gratitude the talks he had with H. J. Paton, the philosopher.
By 1924 it was clear to him where his interests lay-in psycho-
analysis. He started medical training at University College
Hospital, London, won the Gold Medal for Surgery, qualified in
1930, and then went on to psycho-analytic training. At University
College Hospital he had contact with another outstanding man,
Wilfred Trotter, the surgeon and author of Instincts of the Herd in
Peace and War. Both Paton and Trotter played a very great part in
his intellectual development.
After the Second World War, during which he served as the Senior
Psychiatrist on the War Office Selection Board, he devoted the rest
of his life to the practice of psycho-analysis. He became one of the
foremost original thinkers in this field, and also in that of group
behaviour, lecturing widely and writing prolifically-many papers
FOREWORD
and some fourteen books, most of which are now required reading
in training institutes.
He was Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Tavistock
Clinic, London, in 1945; Director of the London Clinic of Psycho-
analysis from 1956-62; and President of the British Psycho-
analytical Society from 1962-65.
In 1968 a request that he work in Los Angeles provided the
opportunity to escape from what he called 'the cosy domesticity' of
England. The vast open spaces of the western United States awoke
in him memories of his childhood in India: the culture, however,
was altogether new to him. It released him from the confines of
traditionalism and enabled him to entertain his 'wild thoughts'; his
mind was as wide open to new impressions during the last decade
of his life as it had ever been in youth. So it was that in the alien,
vital, dangerous but superficially idyllic environment of California
he was stimulated to write the trilogy, A Memoir of the Future, a
psycho-analytically orientated autobiographical fantasy -the most
controversial and least understood of his works.
The qualities of courage and leadership, already evident by the
time he was twenty years old, stood him in good stead as a psycho-
analyst. He made plenty of enemies, as original thinkers always do,
but no amount of hostility ever deflected him from his
determination to be true to himself and to his beliefs.
Although he originally intended to stay only three or four years in
California, he did not return to England until 1979. He died two
months later in Oxford, with the 'dreaming' spires' visible from his
hospital bed.
Those who were fortunate enough to be touched by his wisdom
and affectionate concern were never quite the same again. We who
knew him well will carry something of him with us for the rest of
our lives.
Francesca Bion
Abingdon, Oxfordshire.
1982
PREFACE
In this book my intention has been to be truthful. It is an
exalted ambition; after many years of experience I know
that the most I can claim is to be 'relatively' truthful.
Without attempting any definition of terms I leave it to
be understood that by 'truth' I mean 'aesthetic' truth and
'psycho-analytic' truth; this last I consider to be a 'grade'
of scientific truth. In other terms, I hope to achieve, in
part and as a whole, the formulation of phenomena as
close as possible to noumena.
Many names are mentioned; experience shows that it
is impossible to prevent conjecture from replacing gaps
with 'facts'. The 'facts' are not of my choosing; they can
be so fashioned to serve any aim that the speculator
might have. Anyone can 'know' which school,
regiment, colleagues, friends I write about. In all but the
most superficial sense they would be wrong. I write
about 'me'. I do so deliberately because I am aware that
that is what I should do anyhow. I am also more likely
to approximate to my ambition if I write about the
person I know better than anyone else-myself.
The book, therefore, is about the relationships of one
man and not about the people, communities, groups
whose names are mentioned. If I could have resorted to
abstractions I would have done so. Such a procedure,
without any preparation, would leave the reader
grappling with meaningless manipulations of jargon.
INDIA
0 u R ayah was a wizened lit tle woman who, in so far as I connected
age with her at all, was assumed by my sister and me to be very
old, much older than our father and mother. We were very fond of
her, perhaps more fond than of our parents. On second thoughts,
perhaps not. My mother was a little frightening. For one thing she
might die because she was so old. She was not so old as our ayah;
my sister and I agreed that she was not less than, say, two or maybe
three hundred years old, and though this was a ripe age she did not
seem likely to die. Our mother, on the other hand, was peculiar; it
felt queer if she picked me up and put me on her lap, warm and safe
and comfortable. Then suddenly cold and frightening, as it was
many years later at the end of school service when the doors were
opened and a cold draught of night air seemed to sigh gently
through the sermonically heated chapel. Sermons, the Headmaster,
God, The Father Almighty, Arf Arfer 00 Arf in Mphm, please
make me a good boy. I would slip off her lap quickly and hunt for
my sister.
In the evening we would stand together by the travelling
harmonium while my mother, in the light of an oil lamp, carefully
picked out tunes which my sister and I joined her in singing,
about the green hill-so green compared with parched burning
India of the daylight that had just finished-and its tiny jewelled
city wall. Poor little green hill; why hadn't it got a city wall? It took
me a long time to realize that the wretched poet meant it had no
city wall, and longer still to realize he meant-incredible though it
seemed-that it was outside the city wall.
I went into this question thoroughly-and others like "Is golden
syrup really gold?"-with my mother, and later with my father,
but without being satisfied by either. I concluded that my mother
didn't really know; though she tried very hard she seemed as
puzzled as I was. It was more complicated with my father; he
would start but seemed to tire when I did not understand the
explanation. The climax came when I asked my question about