National trust membership is it a class thing

[candaby653]

Ok so I have never thought about national trust membership being a class thing. I thought of it as a normal thing lots of families have.

However I heard someone in a cafe having a rant about someone they knew, "they have every middle class status symbol right down to the national trust sticker on the Audi"

Is this how people see national trust!

Lots of family don't have a sober/capable/involved adult, mine didn't at time growing up, and yes not going to NT properties was the least of our worries. Lots of kids might only have one pare of shoes, so can't risk getting them wet, or not have a decent coat, maybe one that is ok-ish for half hour in the school yard, but not for a full day out. You could wrap a sandwich in kitchen role, but that assumes that they have a kitchen (not a hotel room) and buy kitchen role (we never did, cloth or toilet paper), it also means having to buy the things to make sandwiches, when you might have a tin of beans in, that will do for lunch at home but can't be taken out.

These factors are real and exclude children from taking part in society in many way, as much membership fee does (those this is also an issue for many)

Even a struggling parent might manage an ad-hoc trip to the local park etc, but they're never going to sit down and plan how to get multiple outings for good value, so NT and similar is just completely out of the reach of kids living in that kind of situation.

But if you only live in a middle class bubble & go to places like NT, you'll never see those families (for the reasons mentioned), so might find yourself believing that all kids own a hat & coat.

Of course you have to work out how to count the large numbers of obviously middle class people who insist they are actually working class.
That's some of it, but honestly I think there's far more people on here who seem to be very confused between working class and a subgroup of people who are either in living in poverty, living in very deprived areas, lack interest in life beyond their immediate neighbourhood etc.

There's really problematic ideas about being working class on here where too often people assume that working class people don't do museums, days out, national trust, have interests in different areas, and of course can't afford anything, but then also make it clear that actually working class people have got the money to do what posters consider acceptable working class activities (usually soft play, theme parks etc).

The idea that working class people can't afford to go to National Trust places but can have a Merlin Pass to go round theme parks is a classic example.

Honestly, I would think of it as a fairly middle class thing, yes. That's not to say that some working class families don't have NT memberships, but I would be willing to bet that the majority of members are middle class.

In the nicest way, I think you're a bit oblivious to how many families actually live.

There are loads of families out there who can't afford to buy their children hats, coats and wellies. Nor can they afford cars or the bus fare required to access places like this.

When I was growing up, our local NT property was a 15-20 minute drive away from town. You could get the bus but then you still needed to walk from the bus stop and the bus didn't run on Sundays or Bank Holidays (when many families are off work and able to actually visit).

You do need a fair amount of privilege to be able to access the vast majority of NT properties, IMO.

This is hilarious - my family are also from a mining area (Denaby in S Yorkshire) and every single family day out they always ended up at Clumber Park. It was a running joke that they never went anywhere else.

Grandad was a miner, uncles worked in various trades associated with the steelworks as the mines were mostly shut by then.

@Sprogonthetyne

What you write is sadly true for some families, but thankfully it's only a small
minority that don't have a parents who's routinely incapacitated to take their kids out, or who are so poor they can't afford a coat... And that families aren't the "working class", they're those that have, for whatever reason, major issues needing social services intervention.

I first got membership when I was first a lone parent and bones of my arse because the main beaches where we live are nt car parks. You would be daft not to if you use those beaches. It was £6 a month then and bargaining Lou's. For me it's up there with exclusive aldi shopping and all kinds of scrimping.

But I am squarely middle class.

I wouldn't have an Audi though the shame!

I work for the NT and I'd say particularly over the last 10 years or so, visitors have become a pretty mixed bag.

The properties obviously vary, but the ones with fuller school holiday event programmes tend to attract more diverse visitors.

Agreed. If anyone thinks it is 'middle class' then they are the problem, I'd say.

Agreed it’s become more diverse (and I understand the NT has attempted to make it so), but pretending there isn’t an issue is like claiming to be ‘race-blind’ (‘I don’t see skin colour! We’re all just people!’).

https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2020/dec/02/the-bame-women-making-the-british-outdoors-more-inclusive

This is from a few years ago now, and it’s not about class and NT properties, it about race and the countryside and how it is that far fewer ethnic minorities than white people (considered as a percentage of all BAME population of UK vs the white population) go into the UK countryside for leisure, to engage in outdoor activities, walking, going to national parks etc.

A DEFRA study said that the reasons those they polled gave for not going into the countryside for leisure included transport costs, but also fear of racism, discrimination, a worry about feeling excluded and conspicuous, a perceived lack of culturally specific provisions and a lack of a “cultural habit of visiting’.

That wasn’t specifically about NT properties, but there are some overlaps.

Maybe as I'm underclass or whatever you call those on benefits I should give up my membership?

We're about five minutes away from our nearest one. I sit by the lake with a book and DH and DS take the dog round one of the walks. We take a flask of tea and some sandwiches it costs very little when divided up over the year and it's so peaceful.

DS is a teen now and we've been doing it for
years he has complex needs and he gets so much from it. Soft play etc was his idea of hell with all the noise and boisterous children or cinema with the noise.