Has the National Trust lost the plot?

AS A National Trust volunteer room steward, I was concerned at reports that guides at Felbrigg Hall in Norfolk were told to wear gay pride rainbow badges (Mail). This might have been overturned, but the sensitivities of the hall’s volunteers have also been disregarded by the instruction to stop approaching visitors and offering to answer questions. This suggests room stewards should just ensure no one steals artefacts and visitors get through the house quickly so they can spend money in the tearoom and gift shop. If such a policy were introduced at Gawthorpe Hall, Lancashire, where I have volunteered for eight years, I would be out of the door. I fear the National Trust has lost its way, with political correctness and diversity now seen as the guiding factors.

Miss JUDITH H. ADDISON, Accrington, Lancs.

THE only people to be outed by the National Trust’s campaign to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the decriminalisation of homosexuality are the homophobes. The irony is that the former owner of Felbrigg, Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, was unable to live openly during his lifetime due to this sort of attitude. Of course, he was private about his sexuality — he didn’t want to invite prosecution and opprobrium from a narrow-minded society.

N. POINGDESTRE, St Helier, Jersey.

ROBERT Wyndham Ketton-Cremer would not have wanted to be made to stand out in this way. Not because he had anything to be ashamed of, but because he was from an age when your private life was private. There was far more to him than the fact he was gay. EMILIE LAMPLOUGH, Trowbridge, Wilts.