Memorial Meeting for Dr Wilfred Bion

One day in April 1951, soon after Wilfred and I had announced our engagement, I was going up in the lift to my office at the Tavistock Institute in the company of John Harvard Watts who said, 'I hear you are going to nurture genius'. This was a surprising and somewhat intimidating challenge; it conjured up images of an eccentric; a recluse; an absent-minded intellectual with a disregard for his personal appearance, a lack of interest in food, hollow-cheeked, of fragile health. But none of these seemed to fit this man with whom I wanted to spend the rest of my life. He was shy, modest, affectionate, witty and of marked robust health; a lover of good food, wine and the best cigars. So I felt confident in accepting John's remark as friendly flattery.

But he was right. I had not then met the iron man who existed within the benevolent one. His determination not to be moulded into a shape congenial to others, his courage in forging ahead with work he felt was on the right track although he could present no evidence to prove his feelings, his refusal to be or do anything untrue to himself—these, combined with a penetrating insight into the human mind and the human condition, produced an extraordinary person. And because the iron never entered his soul he remained highly sensitive and receptive to any thoughts or ideas floating around looking for a mind to lodge in.

His view of himself, however, was so different from that held by those of us who admired and loved him that it was difficult to recognize any relationship. He complained again and again, when we were talking together, of his ignorance and what he called his 'gutlessness'; he totally rejected descriptions of himself as 'outstanding' or 'famous'. He would quote, 'There are no fields of amaranth this side of the grave. There are no voices that are not soon mute however tuneful. There is no name with whatever emphasis of passionate love repeated of which the echo is not faint at last'. 'You're a pessimist'