Kevin Power

Memoir of Gerald Wooster

The first time l knew of Gerald was in 1984 when he was a senior analytic participant at the GAS winter workshop that year. A Norwegian had shouted out loud to quell the noisy beginning of a large group after which Gerald called attention to his having mentioned in “my paper on Hamlet” that a Norweyan shout had been heard in that famous drama. Gerald characteristically demonstrating his Shakespearean interest which he applied in all aspects of his life.

He became a presence for me in many of the workshops and events that l attended over the years and we started to speak with one another, me always growing in awe at his scholarly knowledge and range of interests especially of Shakespeare. He was often accompanied by Bruin who was also a Society member. I was always in awe of his casually expressed erudition. Once l asked him if he had read Ted Hughes’ book on Shakespeare and the Goddess of Supreme Wisdom? He looked on me with a mixture of pity and kindheartedness for having struggled through it. He thought it had its points but perhaps wasn’t worth the effort..?
His range of interests was very large. Shakespeare and drama and literature for sure, yet in psychoanalysis he discovered little known analysts from across the world and gave notice to their papers. One whose work he championed was Avril Earnshaw, an Australian psychotherapist whose papers on time and unconscious timings in people’s lives across several generations of the same family made a large impression on Gerald and consequently on me. He brought this learning to his understanding of siblng relationships on which he published in the group analysis journal. He most likely also brought this to his supervision of Peter Aylward’s work when he was writing his book on “Understanding Dunblane and other massacres” in which the emphasis was on understanding how individuals came to commit atrocities from out of their often tortured family backgrounds stretching back 3 generations and more.

Gerald was a regular participant in the European Assc for Transcultural group analysis (EATGA) at cities around Europe where we also enjoyed good food and wine and excellent conversation formal and informal. At the meeting in Marsala, Sicily, he discovered via the backdoor of a cathedral, itself jointly named after St Thomas Becket the Martyr, and up awkward stairs to an amazing public exhibition of very large medieval tapestries that had seemed unannounced by its organisers. It was typical of him to follow his investigative nose and discover such a gem.
Gerald could also speak his truth out loud when he felt he needed to. At the EATGA meeting in Bilbao he roundly condemned Germany’s financial attitude towards Greece when that country was in the deepest economic doldrums. Some of the German participants were quite discomforted by his remarks, a d protested loudly ut he refused to recant on his position.

Shakespeare’s work and biography was a huge interest in his life and he regularly found a quote to illustrate or illuminate a group situation. The last time l heard him read a paper was after a performance of Troilus and Cressida at the Wanamaker Globe. His paper centred on this play’s relevance as he saw it to WS’s wedding to Anne Hathaway and how he had most probably been stopped from marrying another Anne, who had been a poet, by 2 Hathaway brothers. Gerald had organised the entire theatre trip and booked the room at the Globe for us all to hear him speak afterwards. I hope this paper can be found among his papers.

Gerald was querulous, curious and ceaselessly inquisitive about the world and what it contained, and the people in it and their conscious and unconscious motivations in whatever they were doing. I have missed him since before the pandemic and will continue to do so.