Melvyn Bragg's Memoir of Wadham Years Out Now

Our alumnus and Honorary Fellow, Melvyn Bragg (History, 1958) was appointed to the House of Lords in 1998 by the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, as Baron Bragg of Wigton. Melvyn Bragg is the author of many books, including the Cumbrian Trilogy. He was the host of Radio 4’s In Our Time from 1998-2025.

The Wadham community will find this second volume of special interest. Titled Another World; The Oxford Years, the narrative covers Bragg’s time at Wadham. The book tells the complete story of how, aided by a scholarship, Melvyn Bragg left his hometown of Wigton and took up History at the College in 1958.

As described by publisher, Sceptre, “over three formative years – as his tutors, his studies and the people around him all expand his horizons and his sense of what is possible – he takes his next steps into adulthood, surrounded by the old, imposing buildings and libraries (and protests and parties) of the ‘city of dreaming spires.’”

Another World provides a rich portrait of the esteemed author and broadcaster’s early adulthood, and of Wadham and the University of Oxford in the late 1950s. Bragg’s descriptions of Wadham animate the College afresh in the imagination:

“It was modest but classical, seventeenth century, plain, perfect. When I went through the gates I felt that I had arrived in an unthreatening place for work. Centuries of it built to outlast and reshape all who entered.”

Impressions from his younger self, preserved in letters, describe Nicholas and Dorothy Wadham, the College’s founders, as “childless West Country religious philanthropists” and then Warden, Maurice Bowra, as someone who “speaks to everyone as if he were addressing a public meeting, but he’s kind-hearted, supportive, cheerfully steamrolling through life.”

The Guardian writes, “the young Bragg is a winning protagonist, who presents much like his older self: thoughtful, open and generous in celebrating his contemporaries’ talents, while forgiving their foibles.”

The Times writes, “Bragg writes beautifully about his uncomplicated, loving male friendships, which began randomly by bumping into each other on a shared college stairwell and lasted a lifetime…”

Wadham congratulates Melvyn Bragg warmly on the publication. Melvyn will visit our College in May, when he will be in conversation with Emeritus Fellow, Jane Garnett. Jane said:

"Melvyn’s love for Wigton, his home town and Wadham, his first adopted home away from home is palpable in this vivid, generous and positive book. I look forward enormously to our conversation."

We look forward to welcoming Melvyn back to Wadham and to hearing more about 'Another World'.