On a Therapist’s Notes

The psychologist watched through the window of his office as the patient left the building. He turned to his desk, picked up a large microphone, and reached beneath the desk where a recording device stood ready.

A metallic click was heard as he began the recording. He picked up his notebook of the details of the meeting and began speaking.

Meeting Notes for Patient 1548, David W., 9 October, ’31.

Patient spoke at length today about his childhood and his formative years. He began with some of his earliest memories of being raised by a nanny more than his mother and father. Patient reported that the nanny would pinch him and cause him to cry when handing him to his mother or father so that the parents would immediately hand him back to her. He only realized this as a young man, but, at the time, he saw this as a rejection by his parents.

He then spoke about his father, who he reports was a stern disciplinarian. Such was the harshness of the father’s discipline that patient’s brother developed a stutter in response to it. Patient says he was able to emotionally disconnect from the relationship early on. On the other hand, patient spoke fondly of his grandfather and grandmother, with whom he would spend many holidays. His father, wishing the young boy to learn discipline, sent him in to the navy at age 15.

The father then decided to send patient to university, but he says that he was not intellectually or emotionally ready for academia. He dropped out without completing a degree. Patient says that his failure at university greatly disappointed the father. When the war began, the father then insisted that the patient enlist in a front-line unit, but he says he saw only limited action despite being sent to the front lines. Patient seemed a bit embarrassed by his lack of heroism in the war. I reminded him that he performed well enough to earn the Military Cross in 1916, but he waved that off. His father, he said, was not impressed despite positive reports of his bravery by his senior officers.

Patient exhibited strong emotion when speaking of the death of his youngest brother, Johnny. The boy apparently died from seizures at age 11 when patient was 23. Patient said he wrote a strongly worded letter to his mother and father, accusing them of keeping Johnny caged in his room like an animal, and that his body was discovered much later after the seizure. Although he claims he “barely knew” his little brother, he felt it incumbent upon himself to chastise his parents for their neglect. When asked why he felt it was his responsibility to speak on behalf of a brother he had no close relationship with, patient tearfully admitted that he was writing his parents to take out his own lack of relationship and responsibility for his younger sibling and project it on her.

Patient agreed to return next week, and said he wished to speak of his new relationship with an American divorced woman.

Transcribe and put into patient’s file.

The psychologist turned off the recording device and sat back in his chair. He looked out the window at the London street that bustled with traffic. He let out a small sigh.

No one said that being a therapist to Edward, Prince of Wales, and next in line to the throne of the British Empire, would be easy.

On a Rejected Proposal

Amanda was indeed a great beauty. Her grandfather knew that the young woman would make a great prospective wife for the right man. Now, this was back in the day when women often had little say over whom they would wed. Marriages were arranged by older relatives, and they often involved what amounted to business transactions that would unite lands or fortunes–or change them. And Amanda’s grandfather had his eye on a wealthy man, a cousin, in fact, who would make a good match for Amanda, he felt. She would provide him with a beautiful companion and a good mother for his children, and, since the man was of a higher social rank, that benefitted his family even more.

It helped that the wealthy man listened to Amanda’s grandfather for advice. He felt that the older man was much like his own grandfather had he knew him, but the wealthy man’s grandfather died before he was born. Even though Amanda’s grandfather was named Louis, the wealthy man called him “Uncle Dickie.” This wealthy man had the reputation as a bit of a what we might call a playboy today, someone who had a reputation as someone who made the rounds. Uncle Dickie advised him to “sow his wild oats” but to get serious and think about starting to settle down–preferably with Amanda.

Now, Amanda at this time was a teenager, and the wealthy man was 9 years her senior. While Uncle Dickie saw no issue, the wealthy man wanted to avoid any public embarrassment, so he agreed to wait until Amanda was a bit older before he asked her to marry him. The pair spent time together on trips and became friends, good friends, in fact. Uncle Dickie wrote the wealthy man and advised him to not wait too long. “”For a wife, one should choose a suitable and sweet charactered girl,” he wrote, and added that he should do so, “before she met anyone else she might fall for.” It was clear that he meant Amanda.

That’s when the wealthy man’s father stepped in. He had a figurative and literal (financial) interest in whom his son married, and, for his part, he didn’t particularly get along with Uncle Dickie. The father advised his son to not listen to the advice and to choose someone besides Amanda. But the wealthy man had become smitten with his younger distant cousin.

So, when Amanda was 21, the question was popped. But no one had asked Amanda how she felt. She told the wealthy man that while he was one of her favorite people, that she looked at him more as an older brother than a potential husband. He confessed that he felt strong affection for her, but she said that she could not return his affection in an romantic sense. Now, it’s true that Amanda could have been compelled by her family to agree to a loveless marriage, but they (especially her mother) allowed her to decline the wealthy man’s offer of marriage.

That was in 1979. But the wealthy man wasn’t too devastated by Amanda’s rejection. In fact, he had continued an affair with another woman all the time he was wooing Amanda. And, less than two years later, the wealthy man proposed to another young woman, a 19 year old named Diana.

And despite some misgivings, Diana Spencer accepted the proposal from Charles Windsor, the Prince of Wales.

On a Fat Man

Tum-Tum was one of the wealthiest, happiest, and dumbest people in all of Britain in the late 1800s. Of course, Tum-Tum wasn’t his name, but it’s what all his friends called him because, as you can imagine, this man had a rather corpulent bent to his frame. And his given, Christian name didn’t seem to fit him because, well, he was so jolly and fat. In fact, he was so fat that he couldn’t button the front of his suit vests.

And it should be no surprise that Tum-Tum’s money was from the aristocracy. He had large houses in and around London in which he threw amazing parties across several decades. He and his fellow revelers became known as the Smart Set because all their party exploits were splashed across the tabloids daily. All what this group of upper-crust snobs did was gobbled up by a public eager for news of what the rich were up to. If the wealthy people did it, then the common man wanted to do it, too. The Smart Set often set the pace in fashion, habits, and even things like what alcoholic drinks were to become popular. For example, because Tum-Tum couldn’t button his vests, the popular thing around the nation for a time was for gentlemen to also not button their vests.

And none of this accounts for the inordinate amount of adultery that went on at Tum-Tum’s parties. And the fact that he was married and had several kids didn’t slow him down. For such a fat man, Tum-Tum got around. He preferred his women newly married, it was rumored, because they were usually more “careful” about any possible “accidents” that might result from a rendezvous with him. There are photographs (this being the late 1800s after all) documenting Tum-Tum sitting at parties with his mistress du jour by his side. Looking at these women, they indeed look young but are always dressed properly and conservatively as a married woman should. Once, he had to testify in court at a divorce proceeding but, because of his wealth, his lies about his involvement with the woman in question were believed. The husband’s suit for divorce was dismissed.

Tum-Tum’s idea of a joke was to pour champagne on the head of someone else. He found this immensely humorous, and it caused him to hold his tum-tum and belly laugh uncontrollably. Again, he wasn’t the brightest bulb in the pack. Even his parents despaired of him. Mummy realized her son was a wastrel. His father said, of Tum-Tum’s intellect, that it was like “being robbed on a trip but finding that your weapon is buried somewhere at the bottom of a trunk.”

Ouch.

Eventually, Tum-Tum’s extravagant lifestyle finally caught up with him. A Jeroboam of champagne, twelve of the finest cigars and five meals a day will do that. He died in 1910. His last words were, fittingly, about a successful bet he had placed on a horserace. He was mourned, certainly, but some people didn’t really seem to miss him despite the fact that he was so popular for most of his life. A fitting epitaph was supposedly said by one of his friends that, “It was happy to have known him, but it is happier still that he is gone.”

At his funeral, it was remarked that while he was of the nobility, he was, “too human.” Of course, we’re speaking of King Edward VII of the United Kingdom, Emperor of India, and son of Queen Victoria.