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

[lucydogz]

<a class="break-all" href="https://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/uk-england-norfolk-40825660&ved=0ahUKEwjXzYeYwb_VAhUDB8AKHfOABAsQiJQBCJcCMCU&usg=AFQjCNESdvsFPzoWQVu_7i8WHq_3mutfKA&ampcf=1" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">link
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.

I think we have to be wary of saying that heterosexuality is celebrated by the NT and other organisations - particularly when the artefacts on show are a family portrait or a wedding dress. From that information I can only know that two people were married and had children.

Due to societal expectations we don't know if they were attracted to each other, or if they were in a business arrangement and having romantic same sex affairs.

And as LRD says, the idea of homosexuality that we have now, wasn't around then. Ancient Greece is often mentioned for its male same sex relationships, but those men also had wives - it was a different way of looking at sexuality completely.

toad - I'm not quite sure, but maybe?

I'm sorry, I can't find which post by rookie you mean.

I think the NT is entitled to use the diaries for research. I admit, if they include an entry where he uses the term 'gay' and applies it to himself, and indicates he'd be happy for people to know that about him were it legal, I'd feel very differently. But if his diaries only talk about (let's say) his emotions towards men, then that's more of a grey area, and I think it would be better to quote him, using his own words, and not to label him or make him into an icon (so I agree with you about that bit).

I don't think anyone can be objective or detached about history. Especially when terms such as 'gay' come into play. A man might have identified as 'homosexual,' but not as gay. A man might identify as 'gay' but not 'queer'. A man might well never use any of these terms. I do think it matters to respect those views.

If the NT wanted to tell this man's story, that might be fine. But to label him as gay when there's evidence he would not have wanted that, is disrespectful and arrogant.

Oscar Wilde comes to mind here. There was a time when his marital life - his wife and his children - were almost airbrushed out of the picture, because they didn't fit with what people then thought 'gay' men's histories included. I've heard people suggest he only expressed affection for them because it was expected - because of course gay men don't want children.

Thank goodness, we've mostly left that belief behind, and we accept that being gay doesn't mean you're incapable of wanting children. But, I would hate to imagine what we're airbrushing out of the picture, because we assume we know exactly what it means to be 'gay'. It could be something important.

Depends how much consultation the NT did before launching the campaign tbh. I don't think that anyone is surprised to find out that a few old people are homophobic especially not after recent political events. What the volunteers need to understand is that it is entry fees that keep the NT alive and telling gay people they aren't welcome is obviously a bad idea.

What the volunteers need to understand is that it is entry fees that keep the NT alive and telling gay people they aren't welcome is obviously a bad idea.

Oh, come, on that is not the message this sends!

Actually I think what the NT needs to realise is that if you're dependant on the goodwill of volunteers to staff your business, you're in no position to start making demands on them that aren't related to their ability to perform their role.

As I said upthread my organisation is currently promoting badges that people can wear if they are open to discussing LGBT issues. I will not wear one because I am not keen for a discussion at work about the T element of that. Key thing is that the wearing of the badge is optional- and we are paid so if anyone was to be forced to do it then should be us rather than volunteers. But as my company is relatively progressive they realise that this is not something that should be mandated.

So many social movements and evolutions are tied up with the history of land and property.

Harewood House is not NT, but the massive omission of it's being but with proceeds of the Slavs trade from many descriptions about it renders those descriptions meaningless, historically.

Tne history of tne lives of gay citizens, before and after legalisation, is an important history, and it is fair enough for tne NT to highlight aspects of this history.

It is fair enough to ask all staff, including volunteers, to wear badges reflecting the theme .

That is what they were being asked to do: wear a corporate badge avertising the highlighted history.

What are 'gay citizens' exactly?

I don't think I follow what you're saying about Harewood House. Yes, it's important descriptions should record that it was built on the proceeds of the slave trade. What does that have to do with Felbrigg?

So the thing I'd like to know is; are all NT volunteers at all sites being asked to wear rainbow lanyards/pins?
Because I'd think that was great & appropriate, given the 50yrs reflections/celebrations at the moment (thinking of the brilliant BBC season in particular).
But if it's just at this house and just based on a man who may or may not have self-identified as gay, I think that's not so great. Especially as it's highly possible that the very public "outing" of that individual would have been deeply hurtful and has been made without his choice, long after he died. Being welcoming of all, embracing diversity is absolutely what the NT should be/do. but I'm not sure this is about that...

LRD I agree that would be a bad approach. I haven't seen how they present things at the property so have no idea if they have taken his story and squashed it to fit a modern view of being gay, or if they use his diaries to try to give a nuanced account of his life.

But I don't think the use of the rainbow symbol or a celebrity to promote the property necessarily says anything about how they've approached the history. Marketing choices like that are often done by people with much less expertise in the subject they are marketing and much more expertise in the people they are marketing to.

LRD: I am saying that the building and history people who built, used and lived in heritage buildings is as important as the building itself. They are inextricable if we are to fully understand.

We can't have a full picture of Harewood House without knowing it's funding, and it sounds as if the owner of Fellbrigg took his sexuality as a pivotal factor in his decision to give the house to the Trust.

The evolution of equality is an important history in our country.

Sex and sexuality wasn't that explicit between Vita Sackville West, Harold Nicholson and Virginia Woolf but the it is key to the way the rooms and buildings were used at Sissinghurst .

Gay citizens are citizens who happen to be gay.

Presumably many NT properties have the lives of people who were gay within their histories, how can that be hidden if we are to understand history, and why should it be?

The charitable objects of the NT are to preserve for the benefit of the nation land or objects of beauty or historic interest and any contents within the latter.

Their vision is "for ever, for everyone" which is where I suspect the current badge wearing comes into play as it has fuck all to do with their actual charitable objects which is why they exist and is what they are supposed to do.

Unless they are actively stopping LGBT people, or people of race, or men, or women, or aliens from the planet Arg (Gronda, Gronda, your majesty) then they are achieving their vision without needing to impose anything on any volunteers.

Inclusion is about tolerance and respect and this has to extend all ways.

Yes to the above. I'm beginning to realise that I'm not welcome at NT properties because they're not wearing a badge (and lanyard) promoting old heterosexual women. I feel so excluded and will forthwith cancel my membership.

it sounds as if the owner of Fellbrigg took his sexuality as a pivotal factor in his decision to give the house to the Trust.

Does it?! When his family think he was very private about it? I don't follow.

I don't think you can make anachronistic determinations about who might be a 'gay citizen'. You're assuming that a twenty-first-century term and concept are applicable to anyone, unproblematically. That's a form of appropriation and erasure - it's bad history, essentially.

I honestly don't understand why the National Trust feels the need to become involved in the sex life of one of its former property owners. Surely whom he chose to share his genitals with is if of no concern to anyone else!

lucydogz, then you don't understand what it is like to live with real prejudice. I am also an old heterosexual white woman and yes life looks like it is fair and why would we need campaigns but put me as half of a mixed race couple and I see a different world. That is the problem, you take it for granted you are welcome, you don't question that but it isn't the same for everyone.

ShatnersWig well I felt excluded when they ignored me and wouldn't sell me tickets until the rest of the queue backed me up so I think there is a problem and they do need to include everyone and if volunteers can't do that then they shouldn't be in public facing roles.

I wish people would stop being ageist, I'm old, I'm in the age group that is supposed to support Brexit, homophobia and racism and I bloody don't. Being old isn't some sort of reason or excuse or a stick to beat us with. Old people fought for lots of the freedoms you get today, some old people are horrible and so are some young people. My father and FIL both came to this country in the early 40s as they wanted to fight for freedom and against fascism, some of their generation are still around. In some cases, like my FIL, they gave everything for us to live in freedom so that a black man can marry a white woman, so that Jews don't have to live in fear, so that homosexuals don't get sent to concentration camps. The men and women who did that and still survive are old. Give them a break.

granny No, that was ONE VOLUNTEER and you should have reported them to the manager of the property (can't recall from earlier in the thread if you did or not at the time). The NT as an ORGANISATION is not racist or sexist or homophobic. It is an entity. if a volunteer has an issue, you remove them or train them appropriately. You cannot, I'm afraid, as you appear to be doing, tar the whole NT for the actions of one volunteer.

again - I totally agree with shatnersWig. It seems very odd to judge a whole organisation on the basis of one encounter, and, as above, the appropriate response would have been for you to have reported them to the house manager.
granny I was being lighthearted. But on one post you say that life's OK for white old women and on the very next you say how much you object to the Ageism prelevent in society. You can't have it both ways.

You can acknowledge the NT has a problem with staff training in that area and wonder why they haven't prioritised it enough to sort it out, though.
Grannytomine won't be the only person who has had experiences like that.
I am white so haven't been at the receiving end but have witnessed a volunteer at one of my local properties being cringingly inappropriate with a black visitor, asking what country he was from and saying how good his English was (he was from London). She was trying to be nice, but she needed telling that's not the best way to welcome visitors!

I suspect that most women know what it is like to live with prejudice.

Countess But did you go and see the house manager, tell them what you'd witnessed so that that volunteer could be appropriately trained, just in case the visitor themselves chose not to, or to support the visitor in their comment?

YetAnotherSpartacus, really? As a middleclass white woman I experience very little prejudice and although I object to the assumptions made about old people, male and female, being racist homophobic etc I don't find it means they get treated differently in fact it is generally a get out of jail free card as it is used to excuse unacceptable behaviour.

ShatnersWig, not it wasn't in fact, I was ignored by two volunteers behind the counter. That was the most blatant example but not the only one, just the final straw. If you read through the thread I'm not the only person to experience or witness such behaviour. The NT needs to deal with it, I don't care if they are volunteers, even if they pay the NT to let them go in and show their prejudice they shouldn't be allowed to do it.

I didn't complain on the day, we were meeting friends and they had chosen the place so I didn't want to make a scene, I am quite famous in the family for being the one who speaks up and challenges this sort of thing but wasn't appropriate on the day.

Do you think that would have been appropriate, Shatnerswig?