The climb I remember above all others came near the end of my first term. Francis had found the lightning conductor running along the wall of King’s College Chapel, a thin band of green copper spanning 130 feet from the topmost turret to the ground. The chapel, a masterpiece of perpendicular Gothic architecture, had been begun by Henry VI in 1446, and was by far the tallest building in the city. When we stood on the gravel path that led into King’s from the Backs and checked Francis’s route, I had to crick my neck backwards to take in the grand upward sweep of the sandstone walls. I felt afraid then, contemplating what we intended to conquer, and caught a hint of the awe that religious architecture must inspire in the faithful. The gargoyles designed to frighten off evil spirits at the roof of the outer section would, Francis told us, make perfect handholds to swing ourselves up after the first pitch. From there we could use the angle between the main wall and the terminal buttress to chimney all the way to the roof. The Gothic turrets, rising above the stone spears of the finials at the four corners of the chapel, we could attempt when we got up there. Michael estimated the climb would take almost an hour, so we decided to take up a picnic and sleeping bags, and spend the following day on the roof, climbing down the next night.

We watched a cold grey dawn from the roof of the chapel. The views so high above the ground were magnificent, and the whole city seemed to have been arranged for our benefit. Cambridge opened hundreds of feet beneath us bathed in the watery winter sunshine, from the shining seam of the Cam running under the Bridge of Sighs to the tiny rugs of the picnic parties on Parker’s Piece, from the coloured covers of the market stalls to the sandstone bell towers, and there directly below, the heads and hats of the college inhabitants going about their daily business, seen from above like fish in a rock pool, oblivious. Everything appeared in extraordinary detail: I could make out miniature people working through the windows of King’s, a man asleep in his bed in the flat above the Photo Shop on the High Street. It was like peering through the portals of an exquisitely detailed doll’s house. Beyond the suburbs, wheat fields, playing fields and woods unfurled, not wilderness but friendly countryside shrouded in low mist in the morning, rolling all the way to the horizon. The wind blew hard so high above the street, and we could scream and shout and sing with no risk of discovery. I leaned out from the walls into the deep air, drunk on space and sky. It was a freezing day, but the walls and roof provided shelter. We had drawn up supplies from the ground on a line, and we had a lunch of Coke and sandwiches bought the previous day from Sam Smiley’s. We read books and played travel chess. In the evening when the cold really set in we hunkered down in the space between the crenellations and the sloping lead sheeting of the roof, and wrapped ourselves in our sleeping bags. Lisa produced a Thermos of hot chocolate that she had hidden away as a surprise. Gifts from her always touched me particularly, as they were given with a deep frown, a caveat that the present was not a sign of weakness, that next time you would still have to pay. When we had settled into the hollow between the walls, Francis told us a story he had read when researching the climb.