They are engaged in a bitter scrap over Stonehenge It is a private organisation, one of the biggest members' clubs in the country, at odds with government: relations with English Heritage are, for instance, distinctly cool. (They are engaged in a bitter scrap over Stonehenge.) Yet the trust makes exceptional demands on public funds, redistributed through the munificence of National Lottery managers who have been drubbed by tweedy aesthetes into supporting pet projects and are, perhaps, too philistine or ill-briefed to articulate any refusal: "National Trust? Heritage? Oak leaves? Forever, for everyone. Must be a good thing; give 'em £40m."I have always thought The National Trust wrong-headed, preposterous, and even occasionally pernicious But I also used to believe it was staffed by experts. I thought they knew (all too much) about how to organise what are now called "visitor attractions". If you need anything in this country Disneyfied (and I don't think we do), call in the trust. I thought no organisation had better scholars or a surer grip on its subject. I thought they knew extremely well how to run that car-parks-and-toilets culture that despoils the country and turns it into an artificial, managed entertainment.But no, I was wrong. The TV series shows The National Trust in a hilarious push-me-pull-you quandary. In any case unaccountable to you or me, the trust now makes its business not so much the perpetuation of a highly selective view of history as the promotion of a portfolio of personal scholarly interests. At the same time, all decisions are informed by the corrosive distemper of a vulgarian populism. Just as Birtian television was ruined by the madness of percentage audience share, so the trust justifies its activities not with any intellectually rigid defence or lucid schedule or systematic educational initiatives, but by counting the heads of docile, uncritical visitors Think about it and it all becomes very strange Patrick Forbes's programmes allow you to do this. They are brilliantly observed: he stands back and lets the trust explain itself.Thus, so very reluctant ever to demolish any buildings, The National Trust earnestly sets about demolishing itself in a toxic orgy of uncritical self-regard. Precious scholars preen on screen, the ghosts of stately homos prowl.
There seems to be an obligatory National Trust uniform: lovat suits with round-necked jumpers, blue-and-white striped shirts, silk ties, if in the country, a Barbour. The taste for costume among the staff artfully externalises the cosmetic philosophy that makes the trust's activities so dubious to the intellectually curious. Its two most famous current projects lavishly reveal the absurdities and conflicts at the core of this apparently unmanagable and directionless organisation One is the house where John Lennon lived as a teenager. The other is the Gormenghast pile built near Nailsea by a Victorian fertiliser tycoon.I grew up in Liverpool, close to Lennon's home and it is fascinating that the singer's hard-bitten image was a calculated device; he grew-up in circumstances of noteworthy gentility. It was the pretty boy McCartney who was raised in a rough council house (now, of course, owned by trust). There can be no argument about the influence of this built environment on Lennon's world view. |
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