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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
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 psychoanalysis. He started medical training at University College Hospital, London, won the Gold Medal for Surgery, qualified in 1930, and then went on to psychoanalytic 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 [1916]. 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