To feel sympathy to the National Trust volunteers at Felbrigg Hall?

[lucydogz]

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I'm pro-inclusion of minority groups, but think the NT should stick to doing it's job - looking after old houses. As most of its volunteers are retired, who might not want to be representatives of whatever right-on case the Trust decide to espouse,it's also short sighted of them to treat volunteers this way.

The previous owner is a distant relative of mine. I hadn't seen any of this in the news until last night. My mum, who knew the owner / relative well when she was younger, is very sad that he has been "outed" as it's nobody's business and not relevant to Felbrigg at all. He's been dead since 1967 or whenever, his private life should be allowed to remain private.

I don't agree that the volunteers are against supporting gay rights etc, more that they respect the former owner and his family and have no interest in helping to publicise his private life.

Antigonads my mum has cancelled hers too, having been a member for very many years.

Nobody should be homophobic or not support LGBT rights. I applaud the NT for doing this. I don't give a stuff if the gentleman in question was shy about it or if his family are against this( do we know this as fact). Nobody should feel ashamed of being gay or feel the need to hide it. We are NT members as are all our family members. We must have paid hoards to the NT over the years. I have a gay teen who goes to NT properties( albeit reluctantly these days). We are having to teach him the history of the LGBT community in this country and modern day support helps to ensure he feels no negativity towards his sexuality or himself. I would like to see all properties doing the same thing instead of just one. There will be many gay members of the public and their families visiting NT houses. Members of the public who refuse to wear such a worry badge should not be volunteering.

^ That's interesting Egg. I looked at the media reports and they tended to hint this, before choosing the narrative of homophobia. I guess a story about homophobia sells better than one about individuals questioning re how a historical individual is portrayed and represented.

Saucery I agree totally with you. The NT seems to think members of the public can cope with only one thing and will theme a house to push one angle and that alone as if that is the only viewpoint in which to see the house and it's family.

It's dull and it's ahistorical. This one aspect then gets rammed down your throat in every bloody room of the house.

It's put me off visiting NT properties. Yes I appreciate the owner of Felbrigg might have been private because being gay was illegal. But even if it had not been illegal, would he have put posters up on his house to say 'Hello, I'm the owner of the gay house?' Most people who interacted with him would still not have known his sexuality, just like I don't know the sexuality of my work colleagues unless they choose to tell me.

I'm not anti LGBT.
My late BIL was gay, I first met him in 1981 and he was outrageously camp, I had never met anyone like him before (i was only 20). Despite this we became quite close, a year or so later we discovered he had HIV. This was at the time of the 'gay plague' don't drink from the same cup ! In fact once when he was admitted to the local hospital, someone informed the local press and it was front page news on the local paper the next week ! I still have a leather biker jacket that he left me.
Few years later we moved into a street where we had gay NDNs very few people in the street spoke to them, they invited us to some great parties, a lot of Thunderbird was consumed.
All this said I still feel it wrong to force the NT staff to wear these badges.

The previous owner couldn't be out due to the laws at the time. The vast majority of gay men kept to themselves out of necessity. We can't say one way or another if he would have liked to be out.
But the national trust are not wrong to have a campaign to show all are welcome.

It's a bloody badge to show support, not an indepth study of his private life. Should all badges showing support be banned then?

Is this a question of trying to turn a national trust property into "the one with the gay owner" and the volunteers feeling this is a limited focus? Sorry it seems that there is more to the story and I am struggling to read between the lines.

I am fully supportive of rights for all -my own sexual orientation is not conventional. However I feel that sexuality is personal (NB personal and private but not "secret"). I don't understand why an organisation that looks after old houses is asking volunteers to publicly "support" the fact that people have different sexual orientations. It's a fact of life, it's fully protected by law, accepted by the vast majority, with a minority that are fully aware that their views are unacceptable.

I work in the public sector so I'm in receipt of public money, too and would be quite miffed to be asked to wear badges to support whatever the latest campaign is. Wearing badges is childish imo.

I wouldn't trust a word that comes out of the National Trust's mouth. I've seen first hand the way the steam roller into acquired properties they can't even afford. The way they sanitise them and rewrite the former owner's story and present it to the public as something that is a lie. The way they push out tenants and residents illegally. The way they disregard planning laws, wildlife laws and every other legal obligation they should be held to.

They are utter cunts. I'll bet this story has been manipulated to make the volunteers look bad.

I agree with Ironingmountain

But it shouldn't be mandatory.

I would add I was hugging an AIDS victim before Dianna !

People wear badges, necklaces, bracelets for all sorts of things.

Half of LGBT kids are bullied at school. There is still a looooong way to go.

I don't think anyone who volunteers should be made to wear a badge promoting something their 'employer' supports when it comes to sensitive issues like sexual orientation. Everyone is entitled to their own views on such matters and as long as they keep them to themselves, that's fine. So the NT is wrong imo to force volunteers to 'support' their views.

I also think it's just naff of the NT to feel such a badge is necessary. People go to NT houses for all kinds of reasons, but why would they want the sexual preferences of the former owners shoved in their faces?

I feel historically sexuality and sexual relations went on behind closed doors. I don't think I'm a particular prude but don't really feel its necessary to broadcast sexuality either. Its sort of exhibitionist. Sex is a fantastic thing but not a public one. I wonder if some of the volunteers are more uncomfortable with the discussion of sex being an open and public issue more than the sexuality issues?

I would stand up for rights of any minority and defend against discrimination but don't really understand the need for such public displays/ declarations of sexuality.

Pride is great for extroverts, anyone who wants to say look this is me and I'm proud, its fab and that enthusiasm and happiness in what ever leads to the declaration is great and brings a smile to many, including myself - enthusiasm for almost any cause is infectious. But society is a whole mix of people as well as sexualities.

Why can't we all just enjoy living alongside each other with as much tolerance of differances as possible without having to constantly declare I support this group or that group or I acknowledge this groups existance or that groups existance?

I don't give a stuff if the gentleman in question was shy about it or if his family are against this( do we know this as fact).

Yes, we do know it as a fact, they have been widely quoted in the press.

Agree with Toysaurus that NH management imho can be very high handed.

I can't help thinking that we will know that we have achieved true equality for the LGBT community when the sexuality of a home's former owner is not an issue (or is simply one factor among many) but I could be wrong.

This seems to boil down to "are you anti gay" or "are you against outing a private man"

I visited Felbrigg in May and the volunteers clearly adore the house and its last owner. They didn't seem bigots to me, just very protective.

I think the NT has good intentions, but probably chose the wrong house as a flagship.

I do feel things have moved on quite a bit, the gay NDNs that we had, one of them worked for a big oil firm and felt that he had to take a female to work do's with him, rather than him partner.

YANBU.

Forcing people into things backfires. You most especially can't force liberal social attitudes into someone.

I'd rather they were doing such amazing narrative interpretation work at the property that hearts were being touched.

Coercing people into rainbow badge wearing is just petty, silly and closes minds against something they perceive as bullying.

Has anyone considered that the previous owner was a 'very private man' because had he not been he would have ended up in jail.
Exactly! He couldn't dance around wearing a lanyard could he!! For all his family know he might have loved the fact that his sexuality is no longer a secret.
I can't see the point of those lanyards to be honest (and it winds me up that the message is upside down when they're round your neck) but if you're employed by the NT then if they ask you to wear something as part of your uniform you have two choices - wear it or quit your job. Just the same as if you didn't think you looked good in whatever colour the top they give you.

The reports I've read have all focused on the volunteers' being deeply uncomfortable with the outing of the previous owner. I can see that if they have lived in the area for a long time and known the family and possibly even the man himself, and spent a long time volunteering in the house and developing an affection for the former residents, that they might well feel very strongly that the NT are being disrespectful towards the heritage of the house itself.

I do get the feeling that the NT want their very own version of Shibden Hall.

If it is about homophobia, then that's not on. But I don't think it is, necessarily.

Dressed do they no longer own the house? If so not really in a place to complain. It is a badge not an intrusive study. A badge! The fact wearing a simple badge to show support is deemed so distasteful speaks volumes and says a lot re the type volunteering at said property.

It's not an objection to wearing rainbow badges that is the issue for the volunteers though - they are made to wear the badges at this particular property to tie in with the film, 'The Unfinished Portrait', that the NT has just made about the owner, which is intrusive his private life.

www.nationaltrust.org.uk/felbrigg-hall-gardens-and-estate/features/stephen-fry-reveals-previously-untold-lgbtq-history

If I was visiting a house I wouldn't really feel the need to know if the owner was hetero, gay or liked to sleep with pet donkeys. I dont think its right to blow this up if the owner had been quiet about being gay. Maybe different if the house belonged to someone like Quentin Crisp. Also the LGBT thing has spread its net far wider than gay rights now and many are not supportive of all of those strands.