I thought of my friend at the weekend, when we used our family membership to go camping in the glorious grounds of Polesden Lacey, and again today, when I received an email from the Trust informing me that due to what its director general says is its biggest crisis in living memory, it is to shed 1,200 jobs to help plug a 200 million funding gap after having had to close all of its houses, gardens, car parks, shops and cafes thanks to Covid-19.

There are no plans to mothball properties yet, although many remain shuttered: when we were there, the tall, elegant windows of Polesden Lacey remained darkened throughout; there was no opportunity to briefly escape the elements (and the children) to wander through cool, beeswax-smelling interiors; to be transported briefly back in time and marvel at the way people once lived.

Its pretty sobering stuff, even if youre no fan of some of the more right-on moves of recent years. Strip away the beanbags and the political correctness and at its heart, what the National Trust does is irreplaceably important. My friend was right we would all be the poorer without it.

And yet, while the job losses are undoubtedly tragic, could this slimming down turn out to, in the end, be to the good? 40 million of the Trusts savings are to be made in print marketing; 160 shops and 10 cafes are to close. Do we really need to be showered with more leaflets when we visit a heritage property, or be forced to exit through the gift shop, held to ransom over a box of fudge? Perhaps if the National Trust must tighten its belt, we could see a stripping away of all the extraneous fripperies, so we can concentrate on what is really glorious about what it does. For that, Ill keep paying my membership fee.

Farewell to another constant in my life: the noisy, comforting, swaying buffet car on an LNER train journey north. On every regular trip to my homeland, part of the ritual was choosing when, exactly, to make the endless, undulating journey up the length of the train (to take my handbag, or leave it to the fate of the gods?), usually only to find Id gone the wrong way and have to sway my way back again, all in pursuit of a bacon sandwich and a cuppa. The brief bit of core exercise broke up the monotony, but Im quite taken by the idea of being able to order food directly to my seat a small taste of how the other half live, without having to buy a first class ticket.

Read the original:

It should be everyone's duty to join the National Trust - Telegraph.co.uk