Although he had an assistant lectureship at Jesus, Harry did not have a college fellowship during his first year in Cambridge. This meant that he did not have a college room in which to work or see students and he did not have regular day-to-day contact with other senior members of the college. He could dine regularly but not bring in guests. Nor did he have a room in the Faculty of Economics, which did not have its own building with offices until the 1960s. Thus, he worked from Flat 3, Park Lodge.

Cambridge economics in the 1940s and 1950s was so organised that, as Charles Carter later put it, “You had to manufacture occasions for discussions with other members of the Faculty” (Tribe 1997, 147). Since 1935 the faculty had space in Downing Street (a five-minute walk from Park Lodge) for the Marshall Library, a room for classes and lectures and Marshall Society meetings, an office for the Royal Economic Society, and a faculty administrative office with one secretary. The Department of Applied Economics, which was directed by Richard Stone, had space in a temporary building in the courtyard. Most lectures were held in the Mill Lane lecture rooms (another five minutes' walk further away) or, if space was available, in the colleges. One met one's colleagues on a day-to-day basis by chance.