National Trust and Inclusivity

[Rhiannon]

It's a premium article but just feel the joy in this headline.

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/www.telegraph.co.uk/women/life/national-trust-rainbow-row-will-set-gay-rights-back-years/amp/

I'm expecting a reversal on marriage equality any day now.

[Enki]

Saying that making the film is distasteful is not the same as saying that the film itself is, as this person did. Without seeing it. Come on, this is an information film by the NT, who are used to dealing with this stuff. Not Queer as Folk.

I think if an organisation that is curating a house that has a story in part to do with homosexuality were to ignore that and continue to sweep it under the carpet, then that on some way continues the homophobia of our past. There's still a lot of healing to be done. And as the gentleman concerned is dead I don't see how we can know if he'd embrace the changes in our society now and speak for the first time as so many others are doing. But the bigger story isn't about preserving the past. It's about being honest about it so that people today feel welcome, included and accepted.

I haven't seen the film so I cannot come to any personal conclusion as to whether I think the film, or the making of the film was distasteful or not. If you also have not seen the film then I fail to see how you can also. The point about the NT being used to dealing with this stuff is well made, except that they seem to have not actually done too well on the badges' front, at least.

The only word of caution I would make about your personal opinions expressed in your second paragraph is that you seem to take no real account of the matter of personal privacy, which may or may not be of some relevance in this particular case.

However, the only points I have made, and wish to make, are associated with the badges' controversy and your undue haste in labelling a volunteer as homophobic, unless, of course, you have evidence that this is so.

[Rhiannon]

I think we can assume that an NT film narrated by Stephen Fry isn't going to be distasteful. However, its possible. To believe that it is so without seeing it is prejudiced though because the only reason it could be seen to be so is its subject matter.

I'm afraid privacy ends with death. It's how it is. Mine, yours, anyone's. When my family sound secret letters between my great aunt and her lover I was the only one of us that refused to read them. Apparently they were very beautiful and extremely touching. Maybe I should have, I would have understood her better. Social history exists for a reason - understanding us, the past, the present. That the right wing press are using this event to try to damage the gay rights movement should be of far more concern than the 'privacy' of someone who has died and whose views we don't really know.

[Shaker]

I don't see how I can improve on that. Especially the last sentence.

[Rhiannon]

This I feel gives a much better insight as to the gentleman in question.

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2017/07/26/national-trust-and-stephen-fry-under-fire-for-outing-historical-figure/

[Enki]

I think we can assume that an NT film narrated by Stephen Fry isn't going to be distasteful. However, its possible. To believe that it is so without seeing it is prejudiced though because the only reason it could be seen to be so is its subject matter.

I'm afraid privacy ends with death. It's how it is. Mine, yours, anyone's. When my family sound secret letters between my great aunt and her lover I was the only one of us that refused to read them. Apparently they were very beautiful and extremely touching. Maybe I should have, I would have understood her better. Social history exists for a reason - understanding us, the past, the present. That the right wing press are using this event to try to damage the gay rights movement should be of far more concern than the 'privacy' of someone who has died and whose views we don't really know.

I have nothing to add to my comments, Rhi. They are essentially summed up in my last paragraph of Post 26.

[Rhiannon]

http://www.pinknews.co.uk/2016/12/22/daily-mail-urges-national-trust-members-to-resign-in-disgust-over-gay-history-celebration/

[Rhiannon]

Here we are. The distasteful film in full:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pdgaAdhapoc

[Enki]

Here we are. The distasteful film in full:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pdgaAdhapoc

For the record this is my opinion. I don't find it distasteful at all. In fact I find it quite uplifting, especially the wood pigeon sonnet.

[Rhiannon]

For the record this is my opinion. I don't find it distasteful at all. In fact I find it quite uplifting, especially the wood pigeon sonnet.

I think it's an excellent film.

[Shaker]

Here we are. The distasteful film in full:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pdgaAdhapoc

Well there we are.

The whole horrible thing.

Like an MP I have to declare interests: firstly I would consider it a good night's sleep to fall asleep to Stephen Fry reciting the Leicester phone directory in full, and secondly as an ally of gay rights.

But really: that's it?

[Rhiannon]

We can't know for sure of course. But given that he consciously left his archive to the NT, and that his own biographies did not shirk from discussing same sex attraction, I think it possible that he was aware that one day his own private life might be so recorded. As a historian himself he must have been aware of what he was bequeathing.

Whatever, he comes across as a very interesting man.

[Shaker]

A third interest: I have long been an admirer (2017: "fan") of William Beckford - writer, poet, architect, aesthete, bit of everything, gay man, whose (fairly splendid even now) tomb I've visited, touched, photographed.

Perhaps I was in the wrong?

[ippy]

I think we can assume that an NT film narrated by Stephen Fry isn't going to be distasteful. However, its possible. To believe that it is so without seeing it is prejudiced though because the only reason it could be seen to be so is its subject matter.

I'm afraid privacy ends with death. It's how it is. Mine, yours, anyone's. When my family sound secret letters between my great aunt and her lover I was the only one of us that refused to read them. Apparently they were very beautiful and extremely touching. Maybe I should have, I would have understood her better. Social history exists for a reason - understanding us, the past, the present. That the right wing press are using this event to try to damage the gay rights movement should be of far more concern than the 'privacy' of someone who has died and whose views we don't really know.

I'll go with you on this one Rhi, a good level headed post.

ippy

[Nearly Sane]

Here we are. The distasteful film in full:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=pdgaAdhapoc

Had chance to watch this, and found it respectful and a bit preachy, but then that's the point. Is it 'distasteful' in my opinion, no. Do I think that the person judging it distasteful is likely homophobic, yes. Can homophobic people volunteer for BT, yes.

At base though, the main issue is still the refusal to wear badges, and I stick with the idea that it was the wrong thing to do. That some anti gay sections of the media have jumped on it doesn't make it right, nor can the statements of people on here on the question of the badges and the lanyards be taken as indicating that they don't condemn such posturing as well.

[Rhiannon]

Had chance to watch this, and found it respectful and a bit preachy, but then that's the point. Is it 'distasteful' in my opinion, no. Do I think that the person judging it distasteful is likely homophobic, yes. Can homophobic people volunteer for BT, yes.

At base though, the main issue is still the refusal to wear badges, and I stick with the idea that it was the wrong thing to do. That some anti gay sections of the media have jumped on it doesn't make it right, nor can the statements of people on here on the question of the badges and the lanyards be taken as indicating that they don't condemn such posturing as well.

I think it has to be seen in the context of the Pride and Prejudice season that the NT was running. It was as a part of that thatvthe rainbow lanyards were introduced. In one article I read someone said that they deliberately took themselves off the roster for all P&P events so that they didn't have to 'endorse' it. There are volunteers actively disapproving of the priniciples behind this event.

[Nearly Sane]

I think it has to be seen in the context of the Pride and Prejudice season that the NT was running. It was as a part of that thatvthe rainbow lanyards were introduced. In one article I read someone said that they deliberately took themselves off the roster for all P&P events so that they didn't have to 'endorse' it. There are volunteers actively disapproving of the priniciples behind this event.

I am sure there are volunteers disapproving. Again I think you can be a homophobic volunteer of the NT, just as long as you aren't letting it effect how you deal with people. I wouldn't want to wear a lanyard myself because it would feel like an infringement of my rights. That's where the problem seems to me to lie.

[Rhiannon]

Cant reply. Software filter is forbidding it and I can't be bothered to find out what dodgy phrase it doesn't like today.

[Enki]

I am sure there are volunteers disapproving. Again I think you can be a homophobic volunteer of the NT, just as long as you aren't letting it effect how you deal with people. I wouldn't want to wear a lanyard myself because it would feel like an infringement of my rights. That's where the problem seems to me to lie.

Agree completely.

[jeremyp]

A glowing ripple of schadenfreude?

I've read several articles on this and I can't see that there was any compulsion to wear the badges.

Wear the badge or be hidden round the back out of sight?

[Shaker]

Wear the badge or be hidden round the back out of sight?

Hardly "Clear your desk; security will escort you off site" is it?

[jeremyp]

But doesn't the NT (as with any employer) reserve the right to (a) have a - I don't know the right term - mission statement (?) of values and principles and (b) expect those who work for it (volunteers included) to abide by it?

I'm sure they have got a mission statement, it probably says something about preserving our history, our open spaces and our historic buildings. I'd be really surprised if it said anything about wearing lanyards with a particular pattern on them.

[jeremyp]

Hardly "Clear your desk; security will escort you off site" is it?

"Clear your desk" is hardly "we'll take you out back and shoot you", but that doesn't mean it's not an attempt at coercion.

[jeremyp]

The NT is supposed to have inclusivity as a value and they are trying to demonstrate that. As a member of the public what am I to make of visiting somewhere that has volunteers who aren't wearing the lanyards?

I would think nothing of it. I work at a professional organisation where many people wear their security badges on lanyards. You see pretty much every colour under the rainbow and, indeed, the rainbow.

This isn't 'poppybfacism' (I don't wear one because I don't represent any organisation so it's no-ones business). Volunteer or not, they are representing the NT and they do have to adopt a professional attitude that is in line with the organisation's aims. This isn't like running the local cats home.

The organisation's aims are to preserve some of our countryside and historic buildings. That doesn't preclude celebrating LBGT history, particularly this year, but that doesn't mean forcing people to wear a particular lanyard. You are not demonstrating solidarity with the gay community or inclusivity if you have to make it compulsory.

I'd be all for this right up to the moment when they say you must do it. That's the moment when irony sets in.

As for the film, the gentleman is dead so I don't see it makes a lot of difference to him.

Did Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer ever express an opinion on whether he should be outed 48 years after his death in an era where attitudes to gay people are somewhat different to his own era? For almost his entire life it was illegal to be a homosexual. That seems to me to be motive enough to keep his sexuality secret. Perhaps today he'd be open about it and maybe happier.

Oh, and the family members objecting are his god children according to Wikipedia, so it is not obvious how close they were to him.