Cardiff City hitting their form brings on a madeleine moment for Hunter Davies

I was watching Cardiff City-Preston North End when such vivid memories came aflooding back. Surprised by joy, as Wordsworth said. And the opposite. Each is a possible Prem club next season, so I have to keep a check on them. I'll be able to speak with authority even though I'll be speaking to myself. People think fans are lumpen, non-active folks, but we're not. In our minds we're all scouts, spotting talent.

I wanted Preston to win. Their manager is Paul Simpson from Carlisle and I've always liked David Nugent, been following him for oh, ages. During the first half there was a close-up of two figures in the stand. The commentator, and his little helper, immediately spotted John Toshack and droned on about him, now there was a Welshman who could score, bla bla, Cardiff could do with him today.

The other figure, beside him, could be seen equally clearly, but he wasn't named. Neither commentator, presumably, could recognise him. It was Neil Kinnock. Go off to Europe and to anyone under 40, it's as if you never existed. I once slept at his house, in his bed, and he brought me tea in the morning. It was for a book, now which book was it? Gawd, memories are strange things. While events remain clear, you get the order wrong and forget the reasons for your actions.

Must have been 1981, for a book about Great Britain, celebrating our great institutions. So how did Kinnock come into it? The publisher, Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, suggested including parliament, something all Brits should be proud of. We decided to illustrate it by showing the work of an ordinary MP.

I spent the weekend in Wales with Neil, whom I'd never met, in his constituency, Bedwellty. I had an Indian meal with him, late at night, and he said why not stay at my place. He gave me his bedroom and dossed down in the spare room. Very kind. The next summer, knowing I was a Spurs fan, he rang to say he had two spare seats for the Cup Final, for me and my son. Even kinder.

Thinking of Neil, my mind moved to Glenys, his wife. I didn't meet her that weekend, but a few years later I interviewed her at their house in Ealing. As I arrived, she was reading the Guardian, smiling at a column about a social worker called Mary Black - Leader of the Pack. She wondered if I knew who Mary Black was? Certainly do, I said.

My younger sister Marion left school in Carlisle at 15 with no qualifications. She worked in a local tyre factory and got married. It was being presented with a miniature tyre, for ten years loyal service, that made her think, what the hell am I doing with my life. She struggled through O and A-levels, and then, aged 35, got into Ruskin College - where she was seduced by a female lecturer. She'd never realised till then she was a lesbian. She became a social worker in Camden, rose to team leader, which is when she started writing the Guardian column, under an assumed name. Camden would not have allowed it, if they'd known.

In the 1990s she began writing plays, a fourth change of direction. Her first was put on at the ICA, and then broadcast on the BBC. In 1995, aged 56, she got cancer and died. I can see her face now, the day I told her Glenys Kinnock liked her column. The rotten old Guardian, like most papers, just shoved it in, never took her out for lunch, never told her how good it was.

That's when I switched off the game, unable to watch any more. The score at that point was 4-1 to Cardiff.

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