ABSTRACT
The anthropological literature makes clear that a gift can be a serious matter. The honour-bound culture of the Icelandic sagas was particularly extreme where to give a gift that could not be reciprocated was to risk homicide (Miller, 1993). Those readers who know Tirril will find it easy to accept that her particular gift is weightier than it should be, given her persistent extirpation of her own major contribution to much of the research she outlines. The generosity of the chapter by Jim Birley and David Goldberg simply adds to my predicament. I can only reply in all truth that the work they outline would certainly not have emerged in the form it has without the kind of unstinting and continuous support of the kind they have given. Just one of many examples: David Mechanic, whose chapter follows theirs, initiated financial support from America after the MRC had decided in 1971 not to continue funding the last part of our initial grant to study depression, with the scarcely veiled message that our preliminary report was flawed in a fundamental way. His support and the enthusiasm of members from the American Foundation Fund for Research in Psychiatry who visited us surprisingly soon after, which included Neil Smelser and James Anthony, plucked us out of very deep trouble. In response to such generosity and the intellectual distinction of the contributions to this volume I am thankful that I have a slender excuse for the inadequacy of my response by noting our editor has given me a matter of only days to say something of the future. My comments reflect the ideas that occurred to me as I have read through the chapters. The sections roughly follow the order of the issues that have arisen as the research outlined in the opening chapter has developed.
