While I had been on holiday “they” had dismantled my desk and moved everything into a massive shared office where music chosen by NU blared out all day. Only RK showed any concern for the effect of this on my mental well-being.

One consolation was that there was a new member of admin staff: a short, grey-haired lady of 50 (she actually looked much older) who was happy to photocopy articles from the Journal of Information Science for me, just so long as my requests did not infringe copyright.