30 AUGUST 1997, Page 22

Sir: Sion Simon's account calls to mind another dome which

also failed to generate the political capital which Peter Mandel- son's great-grandfather and colleagues had hoped would result.

The 1951 Festival of Britain exhibition on the South Bank was very much a damp squib and attracted substantially fewer visi- tors than the Battersea funfair. The Dome of Discovery was filled with educational exhibits redolent of the Brave New Socialist Era. It reminded me irresistibly of Arthur Mee's Children's Encyclopaedia — a refer- ence work to be found in the glass-fronted bookcases surmounting bureaux which were standard furnishing items in 'front rooms' throughout the land in those days.

A.D. Levaggi

4 Grosvenor Street, Bury, Lancashire