January 27, 2003

LETTERS from seven individuals, three from Southampton and four from the City of Hamilton - damning me for my remarks about the National Trust containing ignorant, hypocritcal amateurs in its membership - have run in your newspaper (Mid-Ocean News, January 24).

I'm led to understand there are another 19 letters on the subject of my comments that did not appear. Print them all; get this on the table! In fact, I would appreciate immensely if one, just one, of your anonymous writers would call me - I am in the telephone directory.

My comments that appeared on the front page of your paper on January 17 were correctly reported, although taken slightly out of context. I will elaborate. My comments were directed at the National Trust's Council, not the broad membership of the Trust; not at the Trust staff, nor especially the past president of the Trust, who some five years ago tried to expand the Trust's council - unsuccessfully, unfortunately!

I called the Trust hypocritical because of the development they do on their own land - look at Waterville with a Victorian pergola and a brick-walled rose garden. Look at the new lake and the pontoon bridge into the Paget Marsh. Look at the workshop on the Tivoli property opposite the PHC.

I called them ignorant because they renovate rather than restore - for example, they renovated the Springfield roof, they took down the little cottage on the Springfield property where Telford Electric was for so many years; they horribly defiled Tivoli, so much so that it has a second grade listing instead of a first. And then we can go to their St. George's properties which they have substantially renovated rather than restored. And why do they, the Trust Council, do this? Because they are ignorant amateurs - just that simple.

Further look at the complexion of the Trust. How many black Bermudians belong and why so few? Well, this is a complex issue and, in part, it is the fault of all of us.

But I think the Trust should be far more aggressive and the Government of the day should offer far more support, especially financially, to increase staffing. Specifically, what has the Trust done to gather and store used cedar beams and windows - too little. But where would they store such items that could be used for sensible and sensitive restoration projects (not renovation)?

My suggestion would be in one of the unused Government buildings that abound. But I digress; frankly the Trust should work harder on national education agendas rather than being the voice against development.

But where would we be without their efforts - certainly far, far worse off. But this does not invalidate my commentary. I am a purist. Without fear of contradiction, I can say that I have done more to keep alive our vernacular traditions of building than anyone else.

My contribution to vernacular architecture pales beside that of the late Wil Onions but I have made a substantial contribution - far more than my nameless critics realise. I get dozens of calls a year, often from people referred to me by the Trust, asking for advice or direction. I am often called a building expert by the newspapers - and I suppose that in this land of the blind where the one-eyed man is king I am something of an expert.

For years I have asked to be appointed to help with St. George's restoration - to add my vision, experience and know-how to what is after all national and international treasure. But St. George's is being destroyed - don't you critics see it?

Look at the concrete. Look at the streets of the town. Look at the gates welcoming you to St. George's - do they not remind you of the Grotto Bay gates? Look at the pathetic pittosporum trees in front of Robinson's Drug Store. Do you not see all this? And I am a booby!

So the next time anyone in the Trust wants to call me, please do, I am always willing to help in any way I can to slow the wholesale destruction of our environment. I would like to see what remains of our natural environment preserved.

But I still support the quality of Kevin Petty's work and, as far as I know, the Trust collectively gave its support (through the Council, of course) to his proposed condominium and housing project beneath the Lighthouse.

So please print any more letters especially if they deal with the substance of my commentary. Of course, I went over the top a bit in my original interview, and for that I apologise. But let's think about all the Trust could be and should be and let's support it.

So now that my critics have got the venom out of their systems (matching the venom I used in your original front-page article), can someone deal with the rest of my commentary? Can anyone refute the commentary in this letter? My purpose is to make the Trust a truly National Trust; to have a membership of 60,000 not 4,000; to have everyone of you think twice before destroying an element of our unique architectural idiom or unnecessarily destroying a wooden cedar sash to replace it with plastic.

Only some seven years ago we allowed a desperate, misguided United Bermuda Party Government to destroy those exceptional barracks in Prospect for a new school. Now we watch another Government destroy Woodland Reserve for another school. Did the Trust scream loudly enough about those outrages? In fact, did we hear them at all?

SANDERS FRITH BROWN

Warwick