This most extraordinary and generous lady was for a time my PhD supervisor. It was after we had both attended one of her seminars on Virginia Woolf that I ran into Sarah in Waterstones in Leicester*, having searched all four floors of the building that then housed the De Montfort University English department for her and failed to find her on any of them. We went for coffee together and talked about The Waves. Now we’re married, which may possibly have involved some kind of category error on both our behalves but never mind.

There will presently be a post on The Waves in inadequate tribute.

* I have always had a thing about libraries and bookshops. One of the few things in my life that has definitely gone according to plan was chatting up my future wife in one.