Long life
Trust a sloppy Joe
Nigel Nicolson
Her book might do more damage if it were better written, and contained more bricks and less straw. It is ill-composed, ill- argued, ill-illustrated and ill-tempered, an anthology of badly digested grievances. Wishing to do full justice to her injustices and give the flavour of the book, let me quote from her interview with Gervase Jackson-Stops, the Trust's architectural adviser: It is his policy that all the staterooms in its houses should be formally presented. 'But what about the other rooms?', I asked. He looked puzzled.
`Other rooms? Were there other rooms?' `Plenty,' I prompted.
`Oh, dairies, laundries?' Was that what I meant? It took a few minutes for him to grasp what I had in mind — dining-rooms, bedrooms.
The implication is disgraceful. It is that the Trust is only interested in staterooms, remains indifferent to evidence of how people actually live, and is staffed by snobs like Jackson-Stops. And this charge is brought against the man who salvaged houses like Erddig, Canons Ashby and Calke Abbey. Weideger's use of her tape- recordings is suspect throughout. What official of the DoT could possibly have replied to her enquiry about the upgrading of the A35 through Dorset with the words, `Hate the country: want more roads'? Is it conceivable that James Lees-Milne com- plained to her that the surrender of a prop- erty to the National Trust is 'the kiss of death', when he has devoted his life to bringing great works of art and architecture under its care? It is not conceivable.
Weideger takes great pleasure in having her prejudices confirmed. Thus the garden- ers, wardens and housekeepers are all won- derful, though underpaid, but above their level the Trust's staff is a snobbish bureaucracy, determined to preserve a disintegrating aristocracy in their moulder- ing manor-houses. But she is never consis- tent. When she interviews the donors, she considers them ill-treated; when she inter- views their landlord, it is the Trust that soft-soaps the donors. The Trust is ama- teurish; elsewhere it is too professional. And so on.
Her most indefensible charge is that the Trust is faint-hearted. Good heavens! Stowe, Ightham Mote, Chastleton and Orford Ness are enterprises, to take only four of the most recent, that no private owner, not even the Government, would have had the temerity to undertake. But I, too, am prejudiced. In the last two years the Trust has relaid the entire sewage sys- tem of the property of which I was the donor, repainted the Elizabethan brick tower from the ground to turret-tops, and remade two leaking lakes. Would I have done all this? No. I would have postponed these necessary works from year to year leaving it to my unfortunate heirs finally to give up in despair.
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