I graduated from my university of choice just over 40 years ago, on Friday 29 June 1984. The following weekend my brother got married, in Spain. You can find a few details about the latter event, with a mention of my graduation, in this piece (“The best hour’s sleep I ever had”).

My university of choice was Cambridge. My mother and sister drove up from London for my graduation and drove back the same night, about two hours’ drive. My mother also drove to and from Spain for my brother’s wedding, two days and nights to get there and the same to get home again. There were five women in the car: my mother, two of my favourite cousins, and a couple of women we are not in contact with these days. My mother would not board an aeroplane.

My brother asked her how the graduation had gone. He told me about it later. “It was the happiest day of my life,” she said. Right now I feel much the same about 5 July 2024. It was as good a day as I can remember. On this Blog I usually avoid political comment. But my views are probably clear to anyone who has spent some time on these pages. I have never voted Tory. If I were American I do not believe that I could ever vote Republican, especially these days. If you were to call me a woke, lefty snowflake I would not take it as an insult.

Labour’s historic, overwhelming victory over the Tories in yesterday’s election was very welcome to me. It made me feel good. The only other time that a UK election result made me feel the same way was Tony Blair’s historic, overwhelming victory over the Tories in May 1997. Unfortunately, that happened less than a month after my mother died. I was pleased for the election result but I was still grieving.

This is only the second time in 50 years that Labour has ousted a Tory government. Before midnight on election day it looked like it was going to happen: the exit polls have proved very accurate over the years. I got home around 1am from my usual Thursday night things (hosting a pub quiz, playing songs at a music session at a different pub on the way home). That was an hour later than I planned, with two more pints inside me than I had planned. My wife was in bed. I settled on the sofa downstairs to watch the results come in. I dozed off from time to time until about 3.30am, when I switched the TV off and slept where I was. I set my alarm for 6.30am.

The election result (did I mention how happy I am about it?) was only the starting point for this most enjoyable of days. The main business of this Friday was driving my daughter and three of her friends to Cambridge for an Open Day at the university.

Some time ago my daughter had asked me to accompany her, travelling by public transport. Just the two of us. I have waxed nostalgic over the years about travelling by coach to and from the city. It was always cheaper and quicker than taking the train. The coach station is in the centre of town, less the 10 minutes’ walk from my old college. In my day the coach to London would drop you at Embankment station, a much more convenient location than Victoria Bus Station or Liverpool Street, where the trains terminated. (Trains did not travel into Kings Cross in those days.) And the train station in Cambridge is a good 30 minutes’ walk away from my old college. Buses from town were not that reliable. If you took a cab, the extra cost, added to the train fare, would be more than double the cost of a coach.

She remembered all this and thought that I might like to relive the coach journey, with her. She was right. It would have been fun. But driving her and her three friends was even more fun.

We were slightly later getting out of the house than we had planned. My fault. But we had collected her friends and were on the M25 heading north within 15 minutes of our planned time. It was raining. There was traffic on both the M25 and M11. Driving conditions were not great. But I was consciously happy, joyful even. The interaction between my daughter and her friends only added to my feeling of wellbeing. I had not spent much time with the four of them together. I did not need to join in with their conversations or try to create conversations of my own. And in my sleep-deprived state I needed to concentrate on my driving.

Our journey took longer than we’d hoped, but we were in plenty of time for them to register for the event at Newnham (now the only all-female college), just after 9.30am. We had only made vague plans for how the day was going to be spent but it was clear that they could make their way around the city without any guidance from me. There were set times when they needed to be at various departments (Engineering, the School of Law, which is where the History introduction was taking place), and they had a few colleges they wanted to check.

I found parking on West Road for 90 minutes and we arranged to meet just after 11am. I walked into town, through Kings College. It was raining lightly. I had a McMuffin meal at the McDonalds in Rose Crescent. It was what I needed. When I came out, hot chocolate in hand, the rain had stopped. The sun was shining for the rest of our time in Cambridge. I ambled through my own college, turned down the chance of a tour, and just enjoyed the feeling.

The five of us met up as planned and after that, as things turned out, I had most of the day to myself. We kept in touch, with calls and messages, but the next time we met was after 3.30pm. They asked how I was going to spend my time. “I’m going to check out the Park + Ride. I’ve never used it before. It might change my life.”

I had ignored advice earlier in the week to book parking in advance, for the whole day. As a family we first took a day trip to Cambridge in the summer of 1976. The idea that any of us might actually study there was unthinkable, but from 1981 onwards we were back and forth all the time. We had never booked parking in advance. I wasn’t going to start now. And I wanted to see how this Park + Ride business worked. I’ll spare you the details, but it’s not for me. Sadly, neither was my car park of choice, in Park Street. Until the 1990s you could park there all day for £3, provided you exited after 7pm, and had three £1 coins to put into the machine at the barriers. It was closed for repair. I drove around checking out alternatives, listening to the post-election news. The only thing clouding my day was the very real concern that I might accidentally stray into a cycle lane, or miss a “No Left Turn” sign or similar. And receive a £65 fine a week or two later.

I ended up in Newnham village where parking restrictions only ran from 11am to 2pm. We had made a vague arrangement to meet up around lunch-time, but that didn’t happen. I was relieved. I could doze off in the car for an hour, which set me up for the rest of the day. My daughter and her friends ate their sandwiches on the Backs. I ate mine in the car.

I left the car before 3pm, pleased that it was parked for free on the road out of town. If I had used the Park Street car-park we would have had a longer walk and would have hit more traffic on the way out. If I had used Park + Ride we would have added another hour to our journey, assuming that there were enough buses heading out of town. I had a coffee at the Sidgwick site and chilled for a while outdoors. I got talking to a couple from Hong Kong. They had left the country “because of the trouble there” and didn’t expect to go back. Their children were all grown up. The couple had relocated to Cambridge but had never seen inside the colleges. This Open Day was their first opportunity to do so.

I joined my daughter and one of her friends for the Introduction to the History Syllabus. I found it inspiring. I read History at the university and never felt as inspired about the subject as I did now.

The five of us met up again at Queens’ College. I had told them about the Mathematical Bridge, the things I had been told about it when I was a student: how it was put together on mathematical principles, counterbalanced pieces of wood, no screws, bolts or other fixings. Later it was taken apart to show how it could be put together again, but they couldn’t manage it, so it’s now held together with proper fixings. They were able to check on their phones that my memory of the construction was more or less right. A quick trip to St Catharine’s College and that was it. 5pm was the closing time for the Open Day, and Corpus Christi had closed its gates already.

We walked back to the car. The rain started again when we were a few minutes away. It rained all the way home. There was a delay on the M11 that added an hour to our journey. We passed the multiple vehicle pile-up that had caused it. We had music all the way home, my daughter and her friends taking it in turns to send their playlists to the music system. We had a lot of Lana Del Rey. There was more traffic on the M25. I had hoped to get everyone home by 8.30pm and get home ourselves well before 9pm but that didn’t happen. It was nearer to 10pm by the time we got back.

The good feelings I had been enjoying all day had not dissipated. And now I could add to them the relief of getting everyone home safely.

This might all sound rather mundane, everyday, nothing special. But it felt so much better than that. I think it was the happiest day of my life.