My annus mirabilis was certainly 1969. The world seemed an exciting place to be and I really enjoyed this phase of life; the year enormously enriched me and changed me. I thought this was the foundation of my future adult life and didn't heed how weak the material basis was for its continuation. Once I was back in New Haven, eager to write up my thesis and move on to a job as soon as possible, the curtain came down and the bad times essentially began. It would be many years before I woke up in the morning with a feeling of longer-term security.

There had been a couple of curtain-raisers. What were the warning signs? At some point in the spring of 1968, a visitor of some note whose specialty was Africa came to Yale. I got wind of this when favoured undergraduates were invited to meet him, but I was left out. I complained (to William Roger Louis, I think) and did get to attend the event, but in the end felt that what had happened was indicative of something I hadn't suspected and was not a good omen.

More to the point, that spring I failed my big oral exam. I had no idea what that exam would be like. I assumed it would be essentially factual and did not expect analytical questions that had no real connection with one another. I had never failed any sort of test in my life, so this came as a big shock. In order to move on and get on with research, I had to have a second go. For this I was better prepared and I have the slightly schlocky memory that someone was playing the Beatles’ ‘Hey Jude’ when I was permitted to take a short break in the middle. I felt confident I was through, and indeed I was. Given Yale's generosity in supporting my research, I put this unpleasant story out of my memory.

The reality is that in the spring of 1970 I entered the academic job market assuming that a job would follow as smoothly as everything else had since I entered college, but this proved instead to be an absolute sticking point, which took over my life for many years, as if a dark cloud sat in the sky.