The month of June, now known as Pride Month, or a quarter of the 30% of the year appropriated by 3% of the community, is drawing to a close. Scenes of naked men flashing all at young children taken to parades in America this weekend just gone, by parents who should be in jail are all over the internet. I marched against Clause 28 but the overt sexualization of toddlers in this way is surely wrong? Or maybe my values just belong in the last century as the decadent est marches full steam towards Sodom & Gomorrah.
This month has seen the elites of the corporate, charity, media and Governmental worlds ramming Pride down our throats almost every day. There have been some utter howlers from companies such as Wickes, whose COO said that anyone objecting to a chap with a penis using the women’s loos as he was wearing a dress was a bigot and was not welcome at the DIY chain. Oxfam, yet again, shot itself in both foot as it adbsued JK Rowling to suck up to the trans extremists.
Meanwhile over at the National Trust I wonder what my grandfather Sir John Winnifrith, once its Director General would think. I look at a photo, in our kitchen, of Sir John surrounded by his children, nephews and niece and his grandchildren, including a 7 year old me, every day. It was taken after his retirement at his Ruby wedding in the old farmhouse owned by the Trust where he lived. I have another one in my study of him and my grandmother tending to the wonderful fruit and vegetable garden they created at Hall House Farm. If I can match that in my own garden I shall have triumphed.
Grandpa loved the Trust because it preserved old buildings and pieces of land such as the White Cliffs of Dover where he had his 65th (I think) birthday party. In his Bennite world view the Trust should work hard to ensure such places were open to the working man at affordable rates. Don’t view that as patronizing. Grandpa may have attended Westminster and Christ Church but he knew that just two generations back his family on both sides were working class and he was not ashamed of that but proud of it.
I do not believe that Grandpa thought ill of gay folks. He had gay nephews and loved and respected them. And gay friends. But the idea that the National Trust should be wasting its cash pushing the increasingly aggressive and corporate month that is Pride would have, at least, annoyed him. That cash should be used to save another building. Or to reduce the obscenely high prices the Trust charges to access its sites these days, thus denying access to them to the poorest in society.
If I want to give money to support LGBTQ causes I give to a charity working for that cause. I have donated to the Peter Tatchell Foundation. If I want to help old buildings I give to the National Trust. But if the Trust uses its cash to promote Pride, tackle global warming or to produce low grade historically inaccurate reports in support of BLM that means it has less cash for its real purpose and its not stop virtue signaling will also result in it having less cash as folks like me do not join or leave it a legacy.
The National Trust continues to be its own worst enemy.
