Letters to Jack Tait: A Psychologist Looks Back

Dear Jack Tait, Allow me to introduce you to these letters from your great-grandfather Dr. Pat Tait, and to myself. My name is Tony Chesterman and I have been acting as Pat's editor during the writing of these letters. He and I have known each other for a long time. We first met in 1964. I was the new curate in the parish where Pat was a GP partner in a local medical practice. In addition to being newly ordained I was also newly married to my wife Valerie. These were new roles for us, to which we subsequently added the role of parent. Unsurprisingly we encountered problems from time to time and the persons we mostly turned to for help were Pat and Dorothy Tait. They obliged us to face up to the implications of our own psychological make-up, and to the issues arising from the new roles we were exercising. Their combined insights and wisdom, especially in relation to the vital importance of loving parenting, we recall with gratitude to this day. You too will discover that the importance of parental love, especially that of a mother, runs like a golden thread through these letters. Why did Pat write them? Principally because he wanted to take an honest (at times brutally honest) look at his life and work in order to pass on to you, and others who might read these letters, what really matters if human beings are to be truly human. I commend them to you and wish you every blessing. Yours sincerely, Canon Tony Chesterman.