Richard founded the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. It was a very lively and open organization at that time, and numerous young academics from a variety of disciplines used to take part in its seminars. Richard was known for the fact that his most adverse comment on a talk was to say: ‘Interesting!’

One of its leading lights at that time was Stuart Hall, with whom I became friendly. He had been a student at Oxford University, his tutor at one point being J.I.M. Stewart, better known by the pen-name ‘Michael Innes’ under which he wrote a lot of detective stories. But I formed the impression that Stuart didn’t have a very favourable memory of this former tutor. Stuart is a warm and radical person, with a very sharp mind and an engaging sense of humour. >For a 2006 interview with him about cosmopolitanism, click here.

Once he told me that he had been invited to take part in a Summer School in a University in the USA. He goes to the US Consulate in London to get a visa. ‘Ah yes, Mr Hall, would you please go to the office down the corridor, second door on the left.’ He goes, and is politely asked to take a seat. The official takes down a large box-file. He opens it. It is full of notes and documents. Taking one out, he comments: ‘I see, Mr. Hall, that you were once the editor of the New Left Review ...’

Stuart did get his visa, but he was struck by the large dossier that had been compiled about him by the US security services.

Stuart was born in Jamaica, and his wife Catherine (‘Cathy’) is of English origin. At that time it was common for individuals in Britain to boycott South African goods, as a gesture against apartheid. Cathy told me once that she had gone to a greengrocer to buy some oranges. She asked the man: ‘Are these from South Africa?’ He replied: ‘Yes, love, but don’t worry. They’ve never been touched by a black hand!’

To go back to Richard Hoggart. As a younger person he was called as a witness in the trial of Penguin Books under the Obscene Publications act for publishing D.H. Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley’s Lover. He said that the book, with its explicit sexual scenes, rather than being pornographic, was puritanical. There is a video showing David Tennant (later ‘Doctor Who’) playing the part of Richard in this trial. Click here to see it. It seems that Simon, Richard’s son, the Guardian columnist, thought it a good representation of his father in the court scene.