When Saeed returned to Cambridge University after his long convalescence following his kidney-removal operation, there was more change in store as he was soon informed that his PhD supervisor, Dr A P French, was leaving for the US. Saeed was instead taken under the wing of Denys Wilkinson, whom he describes as “a scintillating and charismatic, tall, slim, handsome Yorkshireman”. Wilkinson, then 30, was only five years older than Saeed and insisted on being called by his first name, which was another culture shock for Saeed. But Denys was “a very good supervisor”, who held regular Tuesday-night discussion sessions with coffee and biscuits that Saeed would later copy when active at the University of Birmingham later in his own career. This section of the memoirs includes Saeed’s famous remark to Denys at his house as to whether some music playing on the radio was by “the Bolshoi Ballet”. Denys’s reaction was to ask another student, George Chadwick, “to hit him on the head”.

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