National Trust visit spoilt by overzealous staff or AIBU?

[Sunshineismyfavourite]

Visited a beautiful NT country house today. Huge 17th century house with Capability Brown landscaped parkland. The house has lots of art by Van Dyck - one of my favourite artists and I was really looking forward to spending a couple of hours with DH wandering around in the beautiful spaces enjoying the peace and quiet. However, every time I stopped to look at a painting one of the staff would come up to me and start talking. This happened several times in every room we wandered into. I totally get the enthusiasm and expertise of the staff but I wasn't really interested in hearing about the Civil War etc., I just wanted to enjoy the paintings in peace. We do visit NT properties occasionally but have never found this to be a problem before.
The staff just seemed to be unable to read my body language as I was trying to walk away or indicate that I didn't want to talk or listen to them by not responding or engaging with them. Short of telling them to shut up it was impossible.
It was a very quiet day with not many visitors so they were probably bored but it was way too much for us.
AIBU by being a miserable bugger (I know I'm quite unsociable at times) or should I be allowed to wander round in peace? Perhaps they should give out 'don't talk to me' badges with the tickets if you want to be left in peace!

I assumed it was a point about the lack of a Black perspective informing NT practices.

Having worked in the heritage sector I would put money on this being some sort of misguided directive from on high; that all visitors have to be approached in a certain time frame because customer service/engagement/widening participation etc etc.
Definitely worth feeding back to site managers or on social media etc. I'd imagine that lots of the staff/volunteers aren't that happy with it either.

But approaching doesn’t mean you have to bang on at them.
I think you are right though that it is a consequence of training and direction from above because while it’s not unique it NT places it’s particularly bad at those ime. The worst thing about the trust is how very centralised it is.

@EnidSpyton
If you follow the NT link it suggests that the black child is an unidentified attendant. I think most visitors would have assumed that to be the case. It was a volunteer who told me that the child was a symbol of the family's wealth and represented owning slave plantations.

London Galleries and Museums ( and other urban galleries I imagine) are really careful to identify and explain links to slavery. I was taken with a beautiful image of a small black child in a painting by Gabriel Rossetti at the recent Rossetti Exhibition. However, signage explained that the child was 'owned' by a white man who was paid for the child to sit for the painting. It gives a different perspective on a Victorian family, largely seen as reforming.
It is important in my view to explain the background to an unidentified child in the painting. The painting of the Smith Family is rubbish. It is not from scratch but had the family faces imposed on the top of an existing painting. Again, without the knowledge of a volunteer, I might not have noticed this.
@EnidSpyton you write that visitors should be aware of ' the bleeding obvious'. The demographic of NT membership is old. Most visitors would not be aware of the provenance of the painting. It is disingenuous to use this as an excuse for NT properties to gloss over uncomfortable issues.

What an ageist post. Appalling.

@calicogoose I asked you and you did not answer. Can you explain as I am curious about your thinking.

What is the point you are making about the fact that there was only one person of colour looking around the property? The painting put them off ? It is a thing that people of colour do not enjoy doing? Can you explain?

Or my t-shirt that says ‘Shh, no-one cares’.

I would not leg it or leave early, I’d just politely say that I wanted to look round quietly. I don’t understand these people who don’t just say!

There are relatively few visitors of colour to National Trust properties. I know that the National Trust has had a target of increasing membership from ethnic minority groups. Ditto from families.
If you visit any NT property there is not diversity in terms of visitors. Compare this to the National Gallery, the Tate Galleries and other London Galleries and Museums which make a big effort to be inclusive.
On the day I visited Upton Park there was only one person off-colour there at the same time as I was there. It is a snapshot but a revealing snapshot. I visited the Tate yesterday and it was completely different in terms of diversity. I believe that the Tate offers a more inclusive experience.
These are my experiences based in my visits. I was aggressively told that there was no need to highlight links with slavery because to quote the poster it is 'bleeding obvious' and yet the National Trust link to the work of art still continues to suggest that the black child is an unidentified attendant. So not 'bleeding obvious' to National Trust curators.

You are suggesting that this practice as you see it puts off a black person from going? You believe that the black population is knowledgable about this as a group and so will not go? Is it maybe that they like many white sectors of the population are just not interested in that kind of thing? Is it an age thing eg what 18 year old really is interested in this? Is it a poverty thing? Who can afford a NT entrance fee which can be steep? No - it always has to come back to racism doesn't it?

Well the obvious thing is that of course URBAN museums will attract more people of colour - they are accessible to start with. Many of them are also free.

The great majority of posts on MN are based on posters experiences.
Based on my experience many museums and galleries are more successful in recognising diversity, explaining the provenance of historical items and paintings than the National Trust.
This is my experience and I have the right to express my views.

Back to the OP, it was a volunteer who explained the symbolism in the painting. The NT link explains the official line on the painting with its reference to an unidentified attendant.

Of course you can @calicogoose. The NT has millions of items in its collection and it is a long job to cover all of these with eg Lavender Labels , other labels to explain this and that. It is a fine line between leaving people to appreciate something without total over explanation. On the other hand maybe this is needed because of falling education standards.

No. And that is a bizarre extrapolation, saying a lot more about your knee jerk reaction to the idea of change than the words I wrote.

I’m suggesting the previous poster was indicating that the perspective of Black people was not considered.

Though this wasn’t a part of my response, personally I think the effect of that lack of perspective is that we all get a narrower and less informative experience.

In terms of Black participation in NT, all the things that fail to attract White people probably fail to attract Black people too. But it will remain even less relevant and even less enticing to them if their perspective is routinely ignored.

My point is that other organisations handle issues of provenance better than the National Trust and if they want to attract a more diverse set of visitors and become more inclusive, the NT needs to learn from other institutions.
I also pointed out that it was a volunteer who knew more about the painting than the paid House curator, who honestly gave me the impression that she just didn't care about the historical background of items even if they referenced the Slave Trade.
So well done in this instance to the volunteer. I was grateful to her. Not so much the dismissive NT curator.

I'm in agreement with Calicogoose who makes many valid points. It should be remembered, though, that the London galleries and those in other major cities, have a far more racially mixed demographic. I know that Tate St.Ives struggles to attract more diverse visitors (and staff). It is a challenge our cultural institutions are working to meet with varied success.

Many (if not most) of the properties that the NT owns have connections to slavery of one kind or another. Let’s not forget the deprived and undernourished children in this country who left school to labour long hours in textile factories and mines, making their owners wealthy. In Cornwall, they were sent into narrow tunnels to scrape arsenic deposits from the walls. Consequently, they lived short lives.

It seems to me, the really important role of the NT is to educate its visitors in how unjust the society was (and remains) that subsidised the creation of its grand houses and to reveal their history. That’s not to say visitors should be pestered by worthy attendants but that the information should be obviously displayed and further information available if asked for. At the moment there is a struggle going on within the NT because right wing factions are trying to prevent this from happening. Should they prevail, then, a great opportunity will be lost to reveal our history.

No its factual. Any kind of realistic education in schools about the slave trade and the impact it had and continues to have is a very recent change in the curriculum.

When I was at school the slave trade wouldn't be mentioned unless you studied that period in history and then it was glossed over and merged into the successful building of empire and trade. There would be some low key mentions that there was a bit of slavery and obviously we set our faces against it but nothing on the enduring effects or the staggering amount of wealth accumulated on the bodies of slaves. Any "problems" with race and slavery were considered an US problem, nothing to see here in glorious Britain where more time was spent discussing white British abolitionists than the actual victims or exploiters.

My point is that other organisations handle issues of provenance better than the National Trust and if they want to attract a more diverse set of visitors and become more inclusive, the NT needs to learn from other institutions.

I’m not sure the NT as an organisation does want this, though. I sometimes get the feeling they’d prefer not to have any visitors at all!

Gosh, this thread has covered some ground since I last looked a few days ago!

That just isn't true. I'm sixty, and the slave trade most certainly was taught to me when I was at school.(EDIT: I mean, the slave trade in its British aspect and as a source of unjust British wealth, not just as an american issue). Additionally, the evolution in everyone's awareness of both the history of racism and its continuing effects i n our society means that none of us gets our education in these matters primarily from school. It is a constant learning process, one that older people have been engaged in for longer than younger people - and which for older people is informed by their direct memories of a more brutal period in the history of British racism. The Special Patrol Group, the Brixton and Tottenham riots; the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I am sick of the ageist assumption that older people are either more racist or more naive about racism or both.
God, it is only once you get into older age that you realise how completely arrogant you have been as a young person by assuming yourself to be more progressive than your parents' generation.

What makes you think I'm younger than you?

I'm describing my education and experience. The idea that white people routinely connect the riots and Stephen Lawrence or racism in general and self educate on the subject of the slave trade is frankly laughable, as is the suggestion that they actually seek out that information.

My now adult children had very little in the curriculum on this either although black history month did exist by then (but always discussing the same small handful of approved black people).

My cousins in Bristol used to have to pass the delightful statue of Colston almost daily. Lengthy campaigns to move that statue or at least change the lionising description of a man who literally drowned black people for the insurance as their market value was less than the insured value all failed because the good white folk of Bristol thought he was a good bloke.

Interestingly, I've been a member of NT for nearly 10 years, but hardly encountered such enthusiastic room guides. They normally left me alone unless I asked them questions, so I'm quite happy with them. Mostly likely because I'm not white/British, I kind of realizing it after reading this post... 🤔

I didn't assume you were younger than me, @C8H10N4O2 . In fact I wondered to myself whether your post might be an instance of the tendency (in all of us) to continue to operate with ageist assumptions even as we age ourselves, and to regard ourselves as exceptions to the rule.
The fact is that some older people are racist and/or naive about racism and some aren't. Which I imagine is the same among younger people.
I don't disagree with the idea that NT properties are under an obligation to give adequate information about racism and the origins of family wealth. I just wanted to express disagreement about your age-related points.
And I don't think that there is anything 'frankly laughable' about lifelong education in racism. Nowhere, by the way, did I say that people were actively seeking information out. I just think there are several channels - mostly the media but also the efforts of organisations like the NT - through which we absorb the evolving awareness of racism.

I think it’s the difference between running a property funded by entrance fees and an organisation funded by memberships: it’s in their interest to increase memberships regardless of visits rather than visits. I have also heard NT staff talk about certain properties being at or near capacity so they ideally want to funnel visitors towards other properties rather than increase the numbers at all of them. As an organisation they don’t seem to have the passion for sharing their properties with a wide range of visitors that some other heritage organisations I have worked with do, though obviously there are many passionate and dedicated people working for them.