The late author’s reflections on his cancer diagnosis thrum with life and wit, and will make you laugh and cry

There was an outwardly unspectacular pub in Oxford, just off the High Street, that was rendered miraculous by the almost constant presence of a tall, tousle-haired student in the year above me: Simon “Bob” Boas. Bob was a figure of legend: garrulous, generous, with a huge smile. I felt I’d dreamed him into life, so perfectly did he – quoting poetry, holding forth on adventures at home and abroad – fit my sense of what university life ought to be like.

Bob left without finishing his degree, but he occupied a large space in my mind and we kept in vague, parasocial touch until earlier this year when I read in a Jersey Evening Post article, sent to me by a mutual friend, that Bob was dying.