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