You do not currently have permission to view the full text for this document. Please sign in to an account with an active subscription or contact support.
My darling love,
A most exhausting day; I have been compelled to be made an April Fool so often by my enthusiastic Parthenope that I am quite worn out. The stimulation of surprise, indignation and mortification demands
histrionic powers that are quite beyond me without the exercise of great effort.
Your remark that you did not know what relatives I have has made me think I should devote this letter to letting you know about the awful sort of family that you are now about to become a member of – the Bions. The first and fundamental thing to realize is that they are all, as far as I am aware without exception, completely cracked. This is the more difficult because they possess a sort of cunning that has kept them out of the loony bin. I haven't been able to keep track of them all so I shall concentrate on the most important members.
First of all there was a grandfather Robert Bion who was some sort of missionary in India. I don't know anything about him although there is a pamphlet knocking around somewhere proving that he was a ‘fine man’. He had three, or maybe four, sons, one of which I knew as Uncle Bertie who married someone called Irene, worked in the Indian railways, once gave me a tip, and disappeared, for ever as far as I know, from my young life. There were then three brothers: the eldest my Uncle Walter, then my Uncle Rupert and last my father. All are now dead. To prove they were quite mad they married three sisters of a family called Kemp – probably missionary or ‘off’ missionary in the sense that builders and decorators talk about ‘off’ white when they mean cream coloured. The eldest married my Uncle Walter. She was my Aunt Helen who was as mad as her husband. Then came my Aunt Alice who married my Uncle Rupert, and last my mother who was called Rhoda. All had children. I shall take them in turn starting at the eldest, my Uncle Walter and Aunt Helen.
Oh, I had forgotten: there was another uncle and aunt but I don't think I ever saw them and have forgotten