The National Trust is under attack

I think the NT has a lot to answer for.
In this morning’s DT
CHRISTIAN holidays have been excluded from the National Trust’s inclusion calendar, triggering a backlash from members.
While Diwali, Eid and Ramadan feature in the heritage group’s “inclusivity and wellbeing” calendar, distributed to volunteers, Christmas and Easter go unmentioned.
The issue was raised by a volunteer amid angry scenes at its annual meeting, where the Trust was accused of rigging an election to get favoured candidates voted on to its council. Some fear it will allow the Trust, which criticised the Government’s net zero policy and investigated its houses’ links to the slave trade, to push “woke” policies.

Lord Sumption was among the candidates endorsed by Restore Trust, which believes the National Trust has become focused on campaigning instead of its principles of heritage and conservation.
Meanwhile, David Lamming, a Trust member from Suffolk, told the meeting the calendar issue had been raised with him by a concerned volunteer.
He said: “It doesn’t include the Christian festivals of Christmas and Easter. Can we have an explanation please for those being omitted? “
His question prompted a loud round of applause from the audience, one of whom later said it was a sign that the heritage group had become “too woke”. John Orna-Ornstein, the curation director, said: “I’m really clear there is no such internal discrimination .”
Surely it has got too big for its boots and lost sight of what it was originally set up for?

Excellent news. i didn't see it in the paper yesterday. Haven't seen today's papers yet.

Siope

Delighted to see that - again - the Reform Trust candidates all lost and lost badly.

👍👍👍yes good isn’t it?

I saw that on twitter yesterday

Thanks for posting it

Delighted to see that - again - the Reform Trust candidates all lost and lost badly.

I think the problem is that the NT thinks it is bigger and more important than the houses it cares for.

It isn't. It is the servant off the houses, sites and land it looks after, they should come first, last and everything inbetween.

There's one not far away which we have visited a few times, that was in a state of disrepair until the NT took it over and restored it.
I remember climbing up to the top to see the restoration of the roof.

I think that the NT is bigger than the properties it controls. It has to be since there are so many houses and other buildings and the land of course.. If it didn't exist many of the stately homes would have been destroyed.

Near where I used to live in Suffolk there is the remains of an estate formerly belonging to the Rendlesham family. After the 5th Lord R died in 1911 the estate was finally sold for use as a sanatorium in 1923. It was then used by the army but was demolished in 1949. I think bits of it were sold to Americans but can't be certain of that. In any event what remains are a long tree lined avenue, two gate houses and kitchen gardens with associated workers houses.

A similar fate has happened to many other houses and I suspect that without the NT many more would have disappeared and their contents dispersed. I think that some of you are forgetting that many houses go to the NT because there is no family member to take them on or because the owners can no longer afford the upkeep.

That's ok 🙂

Don't keep attacking everything I post.

Callistemon21

Take it how you like. It was a simple statement of fact.

As so often happens on GN, posters put their own interpretations on other's straightforward statements and make them into something they are not.

It's a ploy to make other posters look bad.

Very few of the downtrodden masses achieved high office either.
If only they'd pulled their fingers out .....
Sigh.

Jeeeee zus.

Thanks a bunch for your understanding of how words can be upsetting...

Take it how you like. It was a simple statement of fact.

As so often happens on GN, posters put their own interpretations on other's straightforward statements and make them into something they are not.

It's a ploy to make other posters look bad.


Very few of the downtrodden masses achieved high office either.
If only they'd pulled their fingers out .....
Sigh.

Callistemon21

^Slaves would never, ever have that opportunity^

The son of a slave became a High Sherriff and moved in high society.

I don't think you meant it this way, but the more I read our words the more they distress me. The implication is almost that any slave could have achieved this if only they'd pulled their fingers out...

It was actually fairly common for fathers of children by slave born mothers to give them favourable life chances, but the numbers who benefitted were infinitesimal when compared with the thousands (millions?) of people born or taken into slavery over the period in which it was common and legal. They had no opportunity whatsoever to be anything other than a slave.

Must have Casdon , there is a part of a South Wales Valley, I will not name it , where one learned why there were so many more redheads living there than the rest of the valley. As for
‘Their homes were protected by law ‘ so not true

Anniebach

Little thatched cottages in the South Wales Valleys ? how picturesque but so not true.

I wonder if they have mixed up Merthyr Mawr with Merthyr Tydfil Anniebach?

Little thatched cottages in the South Wales Valleys ? how picturesque but so not true.

Katie59

Casdon

Katie59 according to the National Trust themselves, it’s ‘up to a third’, not ‘most’.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-54018340
The trouble with threads like this is that people do get carried away by the rhetoric.

Maybe a third of “all” properties, most of the great houses have slavery links.

It actually says in the article ‘The trust recently found that up to a third of its 300 UK houses have links to colonialism’.

Casdon

Katie59 according to the National Trust themselves, it’s ‘up to a third’, not ‘most’.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-54018340
The trouble with threads like this is that people do get carried away by the rhetoric.

Maybe a third of “all” properties, most of the great houses have slavery links.

Katie59 according to the National Trust themselves, it’s ‘up to a third’, not ‘most’.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-54018340
The trouble with threads like this is that people do get carried away by the rhetoric.

Almost all the great houses were built either directly or indirectly from the profits of slavery, many of the families are still prominent today, including my mothers family where the links are well documented.

Whitewavemark2

Callistemon21

Slaves would never, ever have that opportunity

The son of a slave became a High Sherriff and moved in high society.

He must have gained his freedom. Of course there are exceptions, but that is not what is being discussed here.

He was the son of a plantation owner but born a slave. His father favoured him and sent him to England to be educated.

Poor people, whilst not enslaved, were also trapped in their misery and indebtedness to their masters here in Britain.

I think it’s you M0nica who doesn’t get it. 😉

Callistemon21

^Slaves would never, ever have that opportunity^

The son of a slave became a High Sherriff and moved in high society.

He must have gained his freedom. Of course there are exceptions, but that is not what is being discussed here.

Slaves would never, ever have that opportunity

The son of a slave became a High Sherriff and moved in high society.

I think that the recent focus on slavery is because the trade and resultant wealth was what helped build so many houses now owned by the NT.

So without the slaves’ labour it could be argued that the houses would not exist. Recognising their contribution to the construction of these buildings is simply filling in the gaps of history.

Of course many wealthy people also owned mines, quarries and mills, and this wealth contributed to other large houses. In fact my ancestors were weavers - in Bradford, - after moving there from Howarth - dirt poor and living in a windowless basement with other families. However, they were free to improve their lives, which they did gradually moving up the scale until they were able to live in a reasonable sized house with servants. Slaves would never, ever have that opportunity.

Nevertheless I think the history of the working classes is a history worth telling (oh how silly of me - it has been told😄😄😄) but it does no harm to compare and contrast the life styles of people and inequalities that has in fact changed little over the last century.

Almost certainly most posters will have relatively recent ancestors in service or employed as farm labourers etc. as well as working in the new industries for a pittance with no rights to safety, holidays pensions etc.

Casdon

Callistemon21

Even later on people were tied to their employers, for example the mine owners also owned shops where their workers had to purchase the necessities of life with tokens they had earned.

Yes, you’re right. I saw an excellent exhibition about life in mining communities years ago at Cyfartha Castle, and that’s the sort of insight I think the National Trust should be providing more information about, it’s so much wider than only slavery, although that is hugely important, it’s not relevant to all properties and sites - they are all unique.

I think I first heard about this on Who Do You Think You Are.