He sets Audubon in the political context of the day: his uneasy boyhood during the French revolution, for example, memories of which made him later wince when having his unfashionably long hair cut by an Edinburgh barber.
Thirteen years later Cambridge were clinging on to Football League memories with one hand and using the other to cover their eyes as the nightmare of Conference football became a reality.
"These are memories that make you think that you never have to give up, that sooner or later there will be one day that we will get a very good result, " he said.