Kristina of Uppsala

The consequent impasse gave Thomas many sleepless nights, for he could see, well enough, that if he were to give in, then he would certainly feel that he had betrayed Kristina, whereas if he was obdurate, then it was likely that GW would find another linguist, and no doubt, in that eventuality she would be excluded altogether. Yet another complicating factor was that neither she, nor subsequently he, had ever received any further reply from the SJDP, so that although it was likely that such an outlet  was now closed, it could not be ruled out with certainty. Nonetheless, Thomas did not feel obliged to tell GW about that, for he was certain that the continuing rejection of the first product of the Winberg-Thompson collaboration was entirely due to the inadequacy of his contribution to it.

In the end, a compromise between himself and GW was reached whereby the paper would have a title such as ‘On the Application of Mathematical Methods to Language Development Analysis’. It would include a few corollaries by GW,  and it would have a triple authorship. Even then there were difficulties, since for almost a week Thomas and GW could not agree on the order of names for which there were six possibilities. Thomas, of course, strongly suggested the two orders which put Winberg first, but GW would not agree to either of these, and even threatened not to go on with the collaboration should Thomas insist on his preference. Eventually, after much wrangling, a short list of two possibilities was considered, namely Thompson, Winberg and Winston as one option and Thompson, Winston and Winberg as the other. At the final selection stage, Thomas, who was naturally anxious to get Winberg as far up the list as possible, strongly advocated the first of these, but GW strongly resented his name being placed behind what he described as an absent author and so, under pressure, Thomas gave in and agreed that the author listing should, after all, be the second one under active consideration.

His agreement to this ranking was to worry him intensely throughout the collaboration and for years afterwards, for whatever may be said officially, the first named author is almost always assumed to be the main contributor. In the case of more than two names, the final author gets scant notice. This instinctive evaluation is extremely inequitable but nonetheless inevitable, given  that in life as it is the human mind automatically ranks people and things in the way it does. Thus again and again Thomas accused himself of having betrayed her and of being an accessory to her  deprivation of what was rightfully hers.

The load of an uneasy conscience was made worse by his having to work with the substitute collaborator. Every joint research session not only made clear that  GW  had nothing like the originality and the creativity of Kristina, but also intensified  Thomas’ anguish of separation from her. More than that, he was incensed by the subtle way in which GW increasingly implied that the mathematical content of their joint paper was essentially due to him, and that Winberg had  been included  only by grace and favour.

There were times when Thomas felt that he simply hadn’t got the will to go on, but then the prompting of the heart  would create fresh sources of energy.  Perhaps, he thought, if he were to strive for Kristina to the limit, then Fate would reward him by suddenly bringing her back into his life again. Accordingly, he concluded that he must continue to cling to the collaboration, even though it was becoming increasingly controlled by GW, for only in that way could he keep the name of  Winberg alive.

As to the results, they were slow to come at first, but after a period of three years they had published jointly as many papers. More than that, they became  increasingly well known in the international research community, and frequently were invited to give lecture tours, or to speak at many international conferences of which the Stockholm conference was but one. The previous insinuations as to why Dr. Thompson had changed his research methodology in 1965 began to melt away, the general supposition being that Winberg was merely a co-author of the first and fundamental publication on account of her having been a research student of Edberg, and not at all because she had contributed anything of real value. In any case, her name did not appear at the head of the other two papers, though there were references in the text to her mathematical publications, as of course, normal practice demanded.

By the time he reached his mid-thirties, Thomas was well established as a professor in a major university in the North of England, whereas GW preferred to remain in Oxford. They had co-authored twelve papers and were internationally renowned. Prizes, medals, honorary degrees were showered on them like confetti.  Everyone involved in linguistics, in some form, hailed them as having established a new order of communication. In day to day terms, their work was acclaimed as even more revolutionary and of greater importance than that of Newton and Einstein.

In contrast, hardly anyone spoke of Winberg, and indeed as time went by, people generally continued to regard the inclusion of her name at the head of the foundation paper as probably no more than an embarrassing concession on the part of the other two authors. Thomas did what he regarded as his best to draw attention to her published work, which after all, could be said to amount to four and one third papers, but now that she was no longer visible then she was generally discounted. In any case, even though everyone professed to be fair to her, it was obvious to any perceptive person that the supposition that no female could make a fundamental contribution to anything at all was still well entrenched in Academia, and probably everywhere else as well.