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Q . NOO ‘ FLYPQPER ' I4 HAY I988 A NOTTINGHAM REVISITED (2) FORTNIGHTLY k Social eminence:-3 0 14 HAY 1988 PRICE 10p ALTHOUGH NOT SO CENTRAL as Nottingham , on its carefully chosen hillock - the highest for miles around - would have been almost as Mesmerised by Maggie familiar a landmark to the people of Nottingham. Even today HAS THERE EVER BEEN a bete noire of the middle- it ‘can be glimpsed from sur- jclass left like Margaret Thatcher? Or is it just prisingly far off between tower that memory is short - I think I remember rather blocks and factory chimneys. We disliking Ted Heath, though it is tempting now to forget how visible, how dominant look on him almost as an honorary member of the were the aristocracy in the life left (mainly because he can't stand Margaret of their locality. However, when Thatcher). the Reform Bill mob burned down \ A couple of years ago, Jill Tweedie pondered the Castle and attacked Wollaton this same question in the Guardian, quoting the Hall in 1831, it was not simply comments of large numbers of friends and because they were conveniently correspondents, and wondering in some distress large and handy buildings. It whether it could possibly be healthy for a was because their owners rep- politician to be the object of so much hatred. resented a reactionary and still I don't think we have to take it quite vso very powerful force. seriously, and it is hard to imagine a piece of Now, empty of their old writing better calculated to bring aid and comfort ii 1;‘? colitical and social signi-— to all card-carrying Thatcherites. This impotent ficance, they" he-we -beaceame mur.-i" -4n%I cipal instead of aristocratic -vu __ loathing by the left must surely be one of their greatest triumphs, conclusive proof that socialism showpieces: nominally, at least, . -\ , ,, . _ , _ - -. . - - ¢- -o.._ - .,_ .. -_ - has been mortally wounded, the middle-class -1 _-_~--..,__ . ‘ £1‘; I‘ ‘ J’. ‘_ “*1, 4_ Y! 1‘ J‘ _ _ they belong to _, the people, if ' - .',.."- 1 ‘ - ‘E5 '_ _ _ \_' , , _ “ ' - I _ __1 ' 4‘-:'I"_‘.';."__,<' In. I . -- fivllinbfiii “wk trendies routed. ‘ . ' _' .'. _ .. _‘ __ .‘. ' ___ , 3-:_‘|‘._it.-'. _ not to the mob. Where oncefithey _ 4--. ._ . _ e _,‘;|3\\'-';' __ '5.-1 8. .-i L I ”‘:I"'_‘.as-I .__~s,_,_.,..,.._._ .,i __‘__ __ - -,'" '" -~-=~s-'-e>'.--I.*"-“..' I II. > represented the extreme privi-- = ~"-""1--0.§jfig"'1 4 No need to be obeeeeeci lege of the individual, they now 4*lIvHv“"" "°" C ~e=-".,,- __

---1| ,.. . I |___ --I . .. ' ' -'~‘ ~' '-;>. - . "1 .- *4" - . '31- ' '1"1', -_,_. ’ , *4. -' '4.-'_ ‘.7.’ embody the idea of at least '5': ' ' ‘ 1- - . So what's going on? Why do we find it so hard * 1 r - . , _- .-..- . . .. some of the land belonging to ~ - '1 . . to come to terms with Margaret Thatcher‘? Why do everybody. But their former .' ' .__‘i. we regard her as anything more than a tough owners have not become extinct. . u-4 opponent who we need to fight but have no need to Rather, they have performed a I "..'.l”' .,:.». 4:11‘ be obsessed by. (You only have to follow Steve neat vanishing trick, slipping Bell's multiplying, disturbing transmogrifications out into the countryside, where . . -‘Ir “:5 of the Thatcher image to see how deep the their descendants remain pillars ‘E | # 4'.! if“ TH!‘ obsession can go: and me too, I should add - I of the establishment (the love every squiggle.) present and fin This is an important question, not for reasons

Lord Middleton are both Old U5 0'" of mental health a la Tweedie, but tactically. "“". Etonians and had distinguished .5 E . 52;. Hatred is intellectually disabling. In a memorable ~'...- . -.,: ' careers in the armed forces). interview with Neil Kinnock, Terry Coleman found Social stratification st ill that the Labour leader's bile against Margaret us, with the thought that not many of the exists but is better hidden. Thatcher was so uncontrollable that he could electorate would vote for her. A lot we knew! .4. -' > :-,. -. It requires a considerable '_' . .-J-._q.,_: ‘ .d_ ~ 4 E "- '- L -\.;: ' barely bring himself to talk about her in rational Another straw in the wind came from Alan .' " } ia-r.3“1. . .-.-.'--1...- . - .- ... .:.." .*!';'..n:...¢"."<"<.=..‘3s1... .- - t ' . 1 effort of the historical imagin- .‘ ; - _ 1| Watkins, political correspondent of the Observer, 1 terms at all — not the best position from which ation to picture Wollaton as it .-.., ( to launch the clinical demolition of Tory policies who dismissed Margaret Thatcher as "a woman of was even at the point where the HISTORY. Uilloughk-vi {family des- corner; high central hall with windows 50 feet up; elaborate the Labour Party (and the country) so desperately irremediably limited intellect". That limitation, of Corporation took it over, the cended from ricl} Ci‘-3 Nottingham course (or single-mindedness, stubbornness, mono— wool merchant , Ralph. Bugge. Took exterior ornamentation with needs. Hall empty but not yet filled mania, whatever you like to call it), linked to new name from ccrprogferty at Will- medieval echoes. Financed partly Much of it is, I feel, rooted in simple dis- from basement to attic with considerable intelligence of another kind, has oughby. on the in-"olds. Peerage by coalmining, but left heavy belief, disbelief that someone so close to a cari- eviscerated dead creatures, the turned out to be one of her greatest strengths. (Baron Middleton) 3712. Land at debt. Stable block 1794; became cature of all the petit bourgeois prejudices and park almost twice its present (We can still hope that it will also turn out to Uollaton first acquired in early city industrial museum 1969-70. small-mindedness we despise should not only be in size before the Corporation be the cause )f her downfall.) cli. Original Hell-aton Hall next Camellia House 1823: one of charge of the country but should be imposing flogged nearly half of it off The .common factor is a tendency not simply to (much of what remains is taken to village church (demolished earliest cast—iron structures; these prejudices on the rest of us and should dislike, but to despise and therefore (damagingly) up b)L_~__fl. golf course), the mid “<;17>. Preserrt hall built restored 1982. Hall and park have been twice re-elected to carry on doing it. When the news of Margaret Thatcher's election to underestimate Margaret Thatcher. Even at our village still a ‘village, and 1580-Q8 in Ancauter stone for sold to Nottingham Corp-oration most fatalistic about her electoral immovability Nottingham V still a relatively Sir Francis Uilloughby. Archi- for £200,000 in 1924. Money as Tory leader first came through, I remember a (forward to the year 2000!), at our most despair- distant smudge on the__horizon tect ‘Qobert imythson (also recovered by selling almost half prominent local feminist groaning with amazement ing over the destruction of so many of the gains while, in the opposite idlirvection, designed» Leongleaa- and Hardwick). park for upmarket housing. Hall that the Tories had elected a woman leader before we thought irreversible, we retain a streak of Ratcliffe "on Soar power station Notable for sym metrical plan — opened as city's natural history the Labour Party (about a century before, I would intellectual and social distaste which runs like was not even that.l * square with e J tower at each museum 1926.I guess). But she consoled herself, like the rest of \ _:_ L |_ _i*f__ T ' __:;I*' ye 1-pi-Q11? ':_;$Il- L _' 1, __—-1; ‘ ' T7 __- 7* ' ' n-1|-I--I 1;-I Fr 1% _ hi i "Q 1 "' IT! i _7-T iii . 7 e ‘I l FLYPAPER iswritten and published by John Ehaffieid, 2 Pmpthill Rise, Sherwood, Nottingham N65 3AU,

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E 2 FLYPRPER : I4 HAY I988 1 FLYPRPER : H HAY I988 3 never be without a Regiment of Five Hundred an irritated, ineradicable jingle through almost background," she told Brian Walden, adding, some- what contradictorily, "It does not bother me.- I Infantry, and a strong Squadron of Cavalry I 7 all the critical commentaries and seems somehow have 30 armed men night and day in Wollaton House cannot stand snobbery of any kind." -1 -/ to prevent -us from facing her head on. L _ paw C‘ Let's conclude with her thoughts about us, which it is my determination to defend at All of us know the words and tune - the limit- whatever risk and having fulfilled my duty I have ed, though curiously dominating intellect; the prompted by Brian Walden, who told her that John Mortimer, on the Wogan programme, had wondered the Honour to be hectoring, overbearing manner; the economics of My Lord your Lordships fl‘ the Grantham grocery (how pleasantly alliterative why she was “always so cross with us". "Of course, she reflected (Walden reports), Most faithful servant - I'm sure we'd have heard less of it -had it been Middleton revolutionary doctrines, like communism, usually H:"-an a Louth or Spalding grocery); the spirit of Alder- ‘a came from intellectuals and academics: ‘They have (Quoted in Luddism in . man Roberts, invoked yet again by Brian Walden in Thoroton Society Record Series Vol. xxvi. Ed. his interview with Mrs Thatcher in last week's a terrible intellectual snobbery and their social- istic ideas come out of the top drawer. They think A Malcolm Thomis. Phillimore 1972. pp14-16) . - Sunday Times, lurking behind the plot like the Q1 that they can destroy what exists and that only (In 1924, incidentally, the rifles and swords in ’,,e’¢‘II:1\ ghost of Hamlet's father, crying "Revenge!" on wets the armoury, perhaps some of the very same ones, -.»aats~a of all parties who treacherously seduced Britannia they know what those who come from the same human clay want. They think they have a talent yere given to Nottingham Corporation as a gift at into the socialist bed (if only it were true!);' the the time of the sale.) outrageously overproduced voice (a sugar plum and ability that none of the rest of the human race has. That is the ultimate snobbery, the worst Ten years later, in October 1831, the Hall (or dipped in syrup); the apparent lack of any House, as it was evidently called) was again under form of snobbery there is. Only put them in ' '-' ,1.‘-vi a_-_ cultural interests (good old Ted and his organ!). -no threat "by Reform Bill rioters, who after burning " I Not the least of those who despised her were charge and the poor will have everything. -So the "1? down Nottingham Castle and a silk mill at Beeston I tags poor put them in power and discover the rulers -I ~.'Y the old guard in her own party, who she has turned their attention to Wollaton and forced the have everything and the poor have nothing."' if . dished even more effectively than the official gate at the Derby Road entrance. Lord Middleton 7%,. opposition. No wonder she hates snobs! "They can Well, if the cap fits, wear it. (But not me, of course!)I had armed a troop of the South Notts. Yeomanry, never forgive me for coming from an ordinary formed from his colliers and tenants, and placed

cannon on the roof of the Hall. Fortunately the The hall before the recent inproveuents rioters were dispersed before they came within range of the cannon and 16 were taken prisoner." subject for a permanent exhibition at the Hall, Whatto do with Wollaton Hall (Sheila M. Strauss. A Short History of Wollaton displacing the natural history museum, which could and Wollaton Hall. Nottinghamshire County Council be moved to more suitable, more flexible premises, perhaps in another of Nottingham's parks, such as country. so the new exhibition tells us). One 1978. p20) 1 HAVE YOU SEEN LADY MIDDLETON‘S new morning room So the Regency serenity of the morningfiroom, Bulwell Hall Park, where a purpose—built museum at Wollaton Hall? It was opened by the present immediate practical reason is that the building is could be put up on the site of the hall demolish- in the middle of a large park with a variety of the "let us now praise famous men" approach of Lord Middleton on April 15th and is the first the history exhibition gives only a part of the ed over thirty years ago. 5 Wollaton room to be furnished in the style of a habitats, including a pond and a woodland nature Following the 1820s morning room, more rooms reserve, which the work of the museum can use- Wollaton story. The Hall and the family can only stately home since the family sold the Hall and be seen properly in the context of a complex and could be furnished in styles representing differ- park to Nottingham Corporation in 1924. As part of fully be linked with. A second, historical, reason ent periods in the Hall's history, while the rest is the Hall's association with Francis Willoughby, sometimes acrimonious relationship with the the same £100,000 improvement programme, the surrounding area. of the Hall could tell the story of the family, great central hall has also been cleared of the 17th century naturalist, a key figure (says including Francis Willoughby, the naturalist (a the exhibition) in developing a methodical taxidermic clutter and an exhibition set up W il1:Lng_ recruit 1-3’? room could be devoted to explaining the signi- showing the history of the Hall. classification of animals and plants. ficance of his work - with stuffed animals if Wollaton has always been the second of And there is a further reason. It was an necessaryi). almost empty building that the Corporation acquir- For example, were the colliers and tenants Notti.ngham's great let-downs. The first, of course, willing recruits to their employer's troop of the But not only the family. Most of the people is our ostentatiously non-medieval castle, which ed in 1924 - the Middletons had taken most of the who lived and worked at the Hall were, after all, contents with them. So here was an interesting South Notts. Yeomanry? (The Notts. coalfield has is a double disappointment because not only is it an even longer history of moderation than we servants. A series of displays might show how the a stately home and not a castle, but, like little problem. If you acquired a large Elizabethan servants lived and how a great country house was mansion, what would youfill it up with? thoughtfl Wollaton, it is no longer a stately home but a Perhaps they were. The Nottingham Mercury run — a tourist attraction, surely. Usually we are museum. Hell, a small exhibition on the history of the only allowed to gape at the overfurnished end Hall. is a good idea, and refurnishing one of the reported in 1846 that adult male labourers on the estate earned from 12s to 16s a week and farmers‘ product. Extravagant showbiz apartments as an early nineteenth morning room is an even better one. As Lord Middleton said, “It's labourers earned from 10s to 14s a week, which was well above the average. (Twelve years earlier, Chang ing pat t erne I used to think this was a pity. Wollaton Hall so nice to see a Wollaton room furnished again." The object, according to Brian Playle, assistant the Tolpuddle Martyrs were provoked into forming in particular seemed architecturally undervalued, their union by a cut to 6s a week.) Sheila Strauss And not only the Hall - the village and chang- locally at least (it has quite a national reput- arts director, is "to make it look as though Lady ing patterns in rural and then urban life, from Middleton had just walked out of the room and shows the Middletons as benevolent enough employ- ation), because the extravagant showbiz exterior ers by contemporary standards, though naturally Anglo—Saxon huts to middle-class suburbia. And the promised so much more than the damped—down could come back in at any minute." pits. Given the importance of coal to the fortunes There's another side to the story, though. How there was a strong element of paternalism. The interior could deliver - a lugubrious display of of Wollaton and Nottinghamshire (Wollaton Hall was best to introduce it? Let's begin with an extract Hall dominated the village. Most of the villagers largely dead natural history, much of which might built on coal, or at least on its profits), then an from a letter written in 1811. Ten years before were not only Middleton tenants but also worked I" have been deliberately arranged to destroy all for the family at the Hall, on the estate or down exhibition on the history of coalmining in sense of the architecture of individual rooms or Lady Middleton might have been walking in and out Wollaton and the county could be a considerable of her morning room, the 6th Lord Middleton was the pit. the building as a whole. Windows are blocked up, The claustrophobia is especially noticeable in attraction. - o rooms kept in semi-darkness to highlight brightly writing to the Home Office in the following terms: All these subjects are central to Wollaton and My Lord, that important instrument of social control, the lit display cases, cabinets and cases obstruct the church. The vicar of Wollaton from 1846-75 was could be brought together in a varied but unified few remaining original features. So insensitive is The riots at Nottingham and the vicinity as sequence of exhibits of far greater interest than your Lordship will readily believe, call'd me the Rev. Charles Willoughby, younger brother of the museum to its architectural setting that the the 8th Baron; his successor from 1876 to 1922 case upon case of stuffed animals, which I know entire collection might as well be in a concrete promptly to my house at Wollaton, as they had from personal experience is of little interest to threatened to take possession of 200 stand of was the Rev. Henry Charles Russell, a grandson of box, in fact would be better in one because the the Duke of Bedford and married to Lord Middle- outside visitors, and sadly detracts from the layout of the Hall allows so little flexibility. arms I have there from thirty years architectural impact of the Hall. Some such residence in the neighbourhood, and my ton's sister. (He is commemorated by Russel} There are reasons for all this. It is not Drive.) project is essential, surely, if we place any value simply that Wollaton Hall was a convenient large particular knowledge of the Town of on Wollaton Hall and the memory of those who Nottingham and its 1- Magistrates, I am The long and fascinating history of Hall, building in which to dump the city's natural estate, village and pit would be the best possible; built it and those who lived there.l history collection (one of the best in the warranted in being of opinion, that it should