THIS is an organisation people turn to in times of trouble,’ says Hilary McGrady of the 125-year-old National Trust’s steadiness in periods of political turmoil and financial stalemate. ‘Our numbers tend to go up. Brexit may be slowing everything down, but ours is the sort of brand that identifies what is good about Britain.’
Mrs. McGrady gave the ‘brand’ something of a reboot herself when she became director-general two years ago. ‘The previous three directors had all been English and Oxbridge-educated. I didn’t really fit the bill, but I felt I’d kick myself if I didn’t have a go,’ she says in a gentle Northern Irish accent, which becomes noticeably stronger when she’s fired up about something.
Her background was graphic design and marketing, but then she became the Trust’s regional director for Northern Ireland. ‘I never thought I’d be director —it wasn’t an ambition. I had my dream job in Northern Ireland and I was involved in a big project on the Giant’s Causeway, but then Wales [the regional directorship] became vacant and, once you’ve tried something new and bigger, it’s impossible to go back.’
Northern Ireland is still the family home, however (she has a tiny flat in England for work) and she is ‘devastated’ by the febrile politics of her home country. ‘The history is that one generation always fights with another and the next generation forgets how bad it was,’ she says sorrowfully. ‘Growing up, I and people I know had all sorts of experiences that others can know nothing about. The whole Brexit debate has cracked it all open again. People think it’s just a border, but it’s so much more than that.’
Denne historien er fra January 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
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Denne historien er fra January 01, 2020-utgaven av Country Life UK.
Start din 7-dagers gratis prøveperiode på Magzter GOLD for å få tilgang til tusenvis av utvalgte premiumhistorier og 9000+ magasiner og aviser.
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Save our family farms
IT Tremains to be seen whether the Government will listen to the more than 20,000 farming people who thronged Whitehall in central London on November 19 to protest against changes to inheritance tax that could destroy countless family farms, but the impact of the good-hearted, sombre crowds was immediate and positive.
A very good dog
THE Spanish Pointer (1766–68) by Stubbs, a landmark painting in that it is the artist’s first depiction of a dog, has only been exhibited once in the 250 years since it was painted.
The great astral sneeze
Aurora Borealis, linked to celestial reindeer, firefoxes and assassinations, is one of Nature's most mesmerising, if fickle displays and has made headlines this year. Harry Pearson finds out why
'What a good boy am I'
We think of them as the stuff of childhood, but nursery rhymes such as Little Jack Horner tell tales of decidedly adult carryings-on, discovers Ian Morton
Forever a chorister
The music-and way of living-of the cabaret performer Kit Hesketh-Harvey was rooted in his upbringing as a cathedral chorister, as his sister, Sarah Sands, discovered after his death
Best of British
In this collection of short (5,000-6,000-word) pen portraits, writes the author, 'I wanted to present a number of \"Great British Commanders\" as individuals; not because I am a devotee of the \"great man, or woman, school of history\", but simply because the task is interesting.' It is, and so are Michael Clarke's choices.
Old habits die hard
Once an antique dealer, always an antique dealer, even well into retirement age, as a crop of interesting sales past and future proves
It takes the biscuit
Biscuit tins, with their whimsical shapes and delightful motifs, spark nostalgic memories of grandmother's sweet tea, but they are a remarkably recent invention. Matthew Dennison pays tribute to the ingenious Victorians who devised them
It's always darkest before the dawn
After witnessing a particularly lacklustre and insipid dawn on a leaden November day, John Lewis-Stempel takes solace in the fleeting appearance of a rare black fox and a kestrel in hot pursuit of a pipistrelle bat
Tarrying in the mulberry shade
On a visit to the Gainsborough Museum in Sudbury, Suffolk, in August, I lost my husband for half an hour and began to get nervous. Fortunately, an attendant had spotted him vanishing under the cloak of the old mulberry tree in the garden.
