Another World by Melvyn Bragg review portrait of the broadcaster as a young man

"Oxford to Bragg seems more a theatre than a city, a spectacle rather than a habitation. After his prelims, the weeding-out exams in his second term, he is left alone until his finals. He discovers Ingmar Bergman and has many earnest pub conversations about whether Pasternak will get the Nobel prize, or jazz is superior to rock'n'roll. He goes on"

"The city's cat's cradle of narrow streets and ginnels reminds him of Wigton. The shovel them in, feed them up and usher them out ethos of Wadham's dining hall evokes family holidays at Butlin's. He soon abandons his Presley quiff for the same neat crop as everyone else, and adopts the unofficial undergraduate uniform: grey flannels or cords, sports jacket or blazer (the student body is overwhelmingly male)."

It's October 1958 and nearly 19-year-old Melvyn Bragg leaves Wigton to read history at Wadham College, Oxford. Oxford feels like theatre rather than a city, and the college rituals echo his Cumbrian roots. After prelims he has a long break before finals, discovers Ingmar Bergman, debates literature and music in pubs, and participates in political marches including Aldermaston and anti-apartheid activism. He later sees his anti-apartheid commitment as partly driven by a residual imperial sense of Britain's responsibility for South Africa. He fits socially at Oxford, adopts undergraduate dress and demeanor, and gets on with a wide political and cultural range of peers.

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