Cellar Bar

Today I met some visiting Italian researchers in the famous Cellar Bar at the OU. I showed them the photographs of Harold Wilson and Aneurin Bevan and explained why they are there.

Of course, PM Wilson founded the Open University ('the best thing my Harold ever did', as Lady Wilson told me years later when we met in the Isles of Scilly. But it was Jennie Lee, Bevan's widow, who drove through the project and made it happen - just in time, because the Tories had vowed to close it down when they took office. Thankfully, they couldn't.

There should be an image of Jennie Lee too, but Bevan is there because it was a donation from his charitable foundation that enabled the OU to transform a dingy old cellar into a wonderful social space, where (needless to say) my colleagues and friends have spent many happy hours over the years. And me too!