Postscript

Evolutionists (among whom I number myself) have trouble with grandparents. Post-reproduction, where's the selection pressure to maintain adaptation, or even life itself (Medawar, 1952)? The answer lies in inclusive fitness (Hamilton, 1964), that is, the ‘grandmother effect’. The persistence and know-how of post-reproductive elders improves the chances of their children's children's survival and flourishing. In hunter-gatherer societies grannies know where to forage for the best roots, while in AIDS-ravaged South Africa, grandparents ensure that their grandchildren survive even when both parents have succumbed. In economically - if not emotionally - developed societies, grandparents provide an essential backstop when parents are ill, separated, work-or poverty-stricken.

Grandparentally-speaking, I've now retired three times: from the NHS, from private psychotherapy practice (Holmes, 2018a), and the University - although I'm still (minimally) working. Each time, it's been good and bad. On the one hand, liberation and relief - hurrah, no more meetings! On the other, a sense of emptiness, of life slipping imperceptibly away: ‘was that it?’ As one of my patients put it, ‘what are you going to do without your weekly soap-opera?’ So when my friends and colleagues Richard Mizen and Nicholas Sarra generously offered to arrange a two-day ‘Holmes festschrift’ (or Peripheral Visions as I prefer to call it), I found myself, after a couple of half-hearted refusals, saying ‘yes’.

In the event it was exciting - if slightly terrifying. It was a wonderful opportunity to invite people who have mattered so much to me over the years, both in their own right, and as exemplars of the themes which have shaped my working life. Represented were: attachment-informed psychoanalytic psychotherapy (Arietta Slade and Mary Target), psychosocially minded general practice (Iona Heath), the society/psyche interface (Nick Sarra, Graham Music), evidence-based practice and practice-based evidence (Evrinom