 This year's conference is testament to our sector's collective ability to find a way to come together, to share our experiences and to explore significant matters which are close to all of our hearts. I hope you've been able to get a sense of the exciting and vibrant discussions that have taken place so far. It's fair to say that the last 18 months the heritage and cultural sectors have undergone a great period of change. We've had to adapt to a rapidly changing world, reiterating the importance of our collections and our professions, while navigating challenging debates about the way that history is presented across the UK and around the globe. I'm therefore honoured to be able to introduce our keynote speakers whose perspectives on these conversations and the work that they do to address issues such as this are highly respected. Like the other key notes and sessions over the course of the next few days, both of the talks promise to be fascinating contribution to this year's DC-DC theme. And I'm sure, like me, that you're looking forward to hearing their honest and robust reflections on the significant impact that the pandemic has had on heritage, on culture, information and academic organisations, as well as their perspectives on global conversations surrounding history and memorialisation. After our keynote speakers have presented their thoughts, I'm going to be chairing an open discussion, including questions from the audience. So if you do have a question or a comment for Olivette and John, then please post them in the Q&A function that you can see at the bottom of the screen. So, I'm honoured to introduce our first keynote speaker, Olivette Ateli. Olivette is professor of history of slavery and memory of enslavement at the University of Bristol, and a fellow and a vice president of the Royal Historical Society. Her areas of research are colonial and post-colonial history, and the histories of people of African descent. She's a trustee of the Research Committee at the V&A, and an ambassador for the National Archives Trust. She's also Bristol's mayoral chair for the Commission on Racial Equality. Her most recent monograph, African-European and Untold History, was published last year. Olivette's talk will explore the challenges surrounding debates on colonial histories and memorialisation, and how history is written and discussed today. So, Olivette, over to you. Thank you very much, Geoff. I'm delighted to be here today. So, let's dive straight in. So, last year, with the toppling of the Statue of Slave Traitor, Edith Causton, many in Britain came to the realisation that there was a debate about the legacies of Britain's colonial past, and the way certain forms of remembrance influenced our gaze on our identities. What appeared to be clear was the fact that there was an emotional content to say the least attached to these debates. Between those who wanted to tear the statues down and those who argued that history would then be lost if people toppled them. There seemed to be little room for actually examining what public memorialisation means or meant. Statues are there to commemorate, celebrate, and in any case, they mark the urban and rural landscape in order to evidence an event and to memorialise a particular story. Memorialisation is cultural, political, and of course social, a social sealant or social cement. It is about, it is also about power, and those who get or got to tell the story that is deemed relevant to the majority, whether that majority sees it as indeed relevant or not, is only part of the motives. What also appears to be incredibly interesting to observe was the idea that debates about statues related to slavery were echoing what was happening in the U.S. with controversies around the Confederate flags, statues, and with the toppling of the statue of coloniser Cecil Rhodes in South Africa. So it was about echoing what was happening in relation to the events of 2014, 2015. Never mind that, actually, some 30 years prior to these debates, in 1991, the statue of Josephine de Boarmet, who was Napoleon's wife, and that was commissioned by Napoleon III, who was the nephew of Bonaparte, in 1859 was decapitated in Martinique, one of France's overseas territories in the Caribbean. So 1991. And the symbolism of such an act is incredible. Activists didn't want to topple the statue, but wanted to engage in a fierce discussion about the idea of partial truth, partial history and memory, partial amnesia of the French state over the history of enslavement. Over the years, the debates evolved and Josephine's statue could not be complete and the head could not be restored until France had engaged with the question of reparations. In July 2020, the statue was eventually toppled. So the toppling of those memorials is not only about how history was bound to be lost if we removed statues, but also about the disappearance of particular reading of that history, and what that history says about the society, the community, or the governments that erected it at the time. Another point of interest that was rarely debated in the English-speaking world is the role of statues of abolitionists in urban and rural landscapes, mostly urban landscapes, and what these statues teach us about the history of enslavement. In Martinique and French Guyana, activists attacked the statue of Victor Schollscher, who is the equivalent of William Wood before, actually. And why did they do that? Many reasons. One of these reasons is because white saviorism has a legacy and an impact on our contemporary societies as much as slavery. So these debates and controversies go beyond the dichotomy between history and memory of enslavement. It is about the rewriting of a representation of a history that until then had been seen as satisfying by the majority of people. Of course, one can argue that in a democracy, the majority has the right to decide who should feature in our urban landscapes, in our public realm. And that doesn't quite work that way, actually, especially when it comes to colonial history. Let me give you an example. Colson, for instance, was not particularly celebrated by the vast majority of people in Bristol in the 19th century. His statue was erected 175 years after his death by a small group of wealthy men, merchants whose families have been plantation owners and slave traders. They decided to pay homage to a man who wasn't particularly attached to the city either, as he was not leaving there anymore when actually when he died. So what is this all about? Well, there are several answers to the question, but I want to throw something out into debate, which is the impact of the pandemic in all this. Why? Because quite often the threat of imminent death can bring communities together, exacerbate what has already been brewing above. The pandemic brought to the surface the cracks that exist within British society, especially when it comes to the representation of the history of enslavement and colonialism on one hand, and the absence or links between that history and its legacies on the other. So in the middle of the pandemic, we have a fear of losing spatial markers that have been seen as part of our national identity or identities. And on the other hand, those statues are seen as the last straw in a time of suffering increased by pre-existent social and racial inequalities. These statues are deemed obscene by some reminders, obscene reminders of unshared wealth and racial inequality. The debates are, of course, also about the political climate and uses of those controversies to score points at political levels. Yes, history, memory, and politics are often intertwined, and when it comes to colonial history, I'm actually arguing that they cannot be separated. Well, I have been arguing that since my PhD in 2005, and I defended it at Les Sorbonne, and it created quite a stir because you don't bring history and memory together and let alone add politics in the midst. So what is the role of the historian in all of this? How do we work with the material that is sometimes elusive, subject to contradictory interpretations or politically charged? The answer is not simple, but we could argue that, well, our job is not to put a judgment on these things but to critically analyze them using evidence. But as many of you know, historians are not lived outside their own society and communities. Their role, however, is to try and analyze the various aspects of our, of one history or one story, and to be brave enough to question the validity of their own findings or previous interpretations. History is about the rewriting of history, contrary to what Oliver Dowden and others have said. There is, however, danger in focusing only on the emotional content and the political agenda of various groups. Now, how do we engage with these debates while retaining a perspective that allows us to see the bigger picture? Well, it's not easy either, but all of these controversies do tell us something that there is much more to the story. In fact, the unease could be a sign of shifting mentalities and priorities. Embracing those controversies means going further than our feelings and even further than the basic dichotomy to topple or not. It could be about a particular production of knowledge and how that is being challenged. And I would like to conclude on a few points. We as historians have a long time being deemed guardians of the past because we have helped shape some of these discourses that are now being contested. We have to accept the criticism. The bigger debate behind statue walls is about knowledge production and it worries many in my profession because it is outside academia and it is about what is deemed non-scholarly activism. Well, this is where our ability to embrace multiple perspectives is useful. Are we really the only ones able to create historical knowledge? Well, the answer is simple and the answer that I want to give as a minority ethnic woman living in a global north is no, we are not the only one. I came to history because of the fascination I had for a woman who could tell stories, colonial stories in a way that was vibrant, engaging, accurate and respectful to all of those involved including the British, the German, the French colonizers. That woman was my grandmother whose great grandmother in mother's history had been shared from one generation to the next one orally. So my point here is that we need to look at who gets to tell the story, how these stories are told, what it says about these people's memories and how those stories shift or enrich our interpretations of the material that are contained in various national and local archives. So it is also about the way new approaches encourage people to share their own archival material and histories with us and what we make of those stories and those material. It's about the new tools and new approaches that are required to read, understand, analyze, transmit and teach those histories to a greater number of people. That is one of the reasons why I wanted to engage with the National Archive Trust and the reason why I work with the British Empire and Commonwealth Collection in Bristol. My very last point is that history is transmitted from generation to generation, so are specific tools to produce and present knowledge, so are trauma related to the oppressive nature of certain historical narratives. Yes, just as much as there is such a thing as the post-memory as defined by Marianne Hirsch meaning memory and trauma transmitted from one generation to another, there is such a thing as intergenerational sense of entitlement that is not related to the amount of money one has, but that is related to the pride one has about certain ancestral achievements in one's place in the world. In certain cases it becomes really difficult to challenge one's own perceptions and belief systems. And quite often what challenges us is dramatic events, changes such as COVID-19, George Floyd's death, a toppling of a statue and a debate about whose history matters. Our ability to accept that those debating controversies are actually opening the door to opportunities to think beyond our individual, communal and national historical boundaries will determine the way we do history, the way we envisage interconnectedness and the way we engage with various source material and most probably the way we look at other areas from the history of climate change, epidemics, to racial gender and social justice. Thank you. Thanks Oliver. Next up I'm delighted to introduce our second keynote speaker. John Orner Onstein is Director of Culture and Engagement at the National Trust, he's responsible for leading the organization's care for and programming of its historic places. He was formerly Director of Museums for Arts Council England and Head of London and National Programs for the British Museum where he started his career as a curator of Roman coins. John's talk will explore how 2020 was a year of challenge that has led inevitably to change including harnessing the power of history, beauty and nature to bring people together. Over to you John. Thank you very much indeed Jeff and I suppose as Oliver was speaking I was reflecting on just how different our talks were but I think that will be helpful in terms of this session and particularly in terms of the conversation that follows and what I have to say is less about a sort of a philosophical position and the sort of foundations for the thinking about how we approach history as a sector and it's more reflection on practical experience and a year of turbulence to be honest and how we've responded as an organization and perhaps how we could respond together as cultural organizations. Let me start with a phase and the National Trust looks in two directions one is towards the countryside and nature and the outdoors and the other is towards houses and collections and museums and archives and so on and looking towards the countryside there is an old country saying that thorn is the mother of the oak which I think is a beautiful saying and what that refers to really is that you need the scrubby undergrowth you need the thorns to protect the saplings to protect the young oaks and it's out of those thorns and only out of those thorns that the strong oak grows. So this has been a year of massive challenge for all of us hasn't there and it certainly has for the National Trust and I think that's organizationally and I think it's important to acknowledge that that's individually as well. At the National Trust we are income over the last year has been down 219 million pounds and that scale of income change has has meant that we could only respond in one way and that's by reorganizing the whole of the National Trust and in the end that has led to about 1700 job losses so massive implications for people's individual lives. Alongside that a process like that is that is never easy but it's come with a whole set of other factors and to some extent of external commentary and quite a bit of that has been about accusations of dumbing down and not valuing expertise and that's something else that we've seen leveled at other organizations where they've made changes in their staffing and actually some of that comes to be quite honest within the cultural sector a little loan from outside the cultural sector and I'm very very happy to answer questions about that in a few minutes time. Alongside that though and and link to what Oliver has been talking about the Trust back in September produced a report on the links between the historic places that we look after and colonialism and specifically slavery. The response to that was very significant there have been more than 300 breath species across the world and counting all the time every weekend there were three parliamentary debates about whether we were conducting ourselves in a way that was appropriate and there was a charity commission report that took a look at the National Trust and decided fortunately that we acted completely within our charitable purpose in producing that report. The impact of all of those things on the organization has been enormous and as I say it's not it's it's the job losses it's the constant change that many of us have experienced in our personal and professional lives but on top of that whole whole other layers of to be honest of racism and abuse and even death that's directed towards myself and colleagues so a really challenging context. My reflection is as a result of all of that and this is when we begin to think about the the thorn and the oak I think we're in a stronger place than we were a couple of years ago pre-pandemic. We are better set up I think to care for the places that we look after that we're responsible for and we're much clearer about what our approach is to history. A few examples we've gathered and focused our resource for example we have we've categorized 28 of our houses as treasure houses that the most houses with with the most significant collections and histories and we're focusing resource on those places so each one of those for example has its own curator and and our ambition is that each one of those is a significant cultural center. At the opposite end of the extreme we've gathered together about 70 of our properties that are small properties and these are the wonderful homes of authors and scientists and musicians and so on and each of those are individually brilliant and we've taken the opportunity to operate them in a different way to run a different model for those properties but actually to accentuate what's important about them to make them more immersive, more about the particular individual histories of the places. We've got much clearer what we think about history and you know had it simplest we believe our role is to research and interpret the whole history of our places in our care and we're unambiguous about that despite the challenge that we've received. Just as importantly and I think towards the end Olivet was was was moving towards this we believe that despite all of the all of the challenge of the last year that history and heritage can be a unifying force rather than rather than a dividing one and and again I'm interested to talk more about that in very practical terms we think we can do better in terms of how we interpret and present our site so that that reports that I mentioned on colonial links to colonialism and slavery was just a very ordinary document to be quite to be quite honest no more than a sort of simple account of the history of some of those places and some some essays that that linked them in itself it's not that significant what's much more significant is how we tell the whole history of our places so we're going to we're going to be working on improving interpretation in the first place at around 40 of our sites across the National Trust and that will be telling histories of you know histories of architecture or whatever it happens to be just as much as it's exploring some of the histories that this session will focus on. We're also absolutely determined to continue to be for everyone and actually to be to be more for everyone than we have been in the past so we've done some lovely practical things over the past year for example we've developed a new a new blossom park at the Olympic Park in east London with 33 trees represent each one representing a borough of London and linked to Covid and lost through Covid just a really practical tangible lovely thing to do with those communities we plan to work with 10 other cities over the last year over the next year to do the same thing and to plant in all four million blossoming trees as symbols of hope. We're also working in different ways and I again I think this relates to what Oliver was saying about how we do history how we explore history and our focus as we've reorganized ourselves is much more on partnerships than it has been in the past much more on crowdsourcing for example and less on what we do ourselves more on how we work with others and how we conduct ourselves and we've done some other lovely practical things like developing hubs for children and young people in 25 national properties across the country so I suppose where is all of that going and what am I trying to say that at a time a massive challenge I think there is only one sort of one key lesson that we've learned and that we keep coming back to and that's that through all of that we've been absolutely focused on what our North Star is and we have a very simple purpose as an organization it's to care for places and collections but we do that for one reason that's for people that's to make people's lives better so that that's sort of North Star of what we call everyone welcome but you might call inclusion it is the thing that I have focused on in everything in all of my actions in all of the challenge as I support my teams as we produce that report as we reorganized ourselves as we opened again it is that ambition to be more for everyone that's that has been our North Star it's taken every bit of our stamina and energy to hold on to that but it is having that North Star that's that's made all of the difference just one more thought which is this if we if we didn't have the challenge if we didn't have the debate if we didn't have the disagreement then I don't think we'd be doing our jobs I'm excited to be on it exhausted by but excited by the challenge that that that we've had and that we continue to have and will have long into the future in terms of the debates that we're having and it seems to me that in at times our cultural sector whether you know museums log archives libraries arts organizations we can have quite a narrow focus and often we can serve quite a narrow constituency and I'm really interested by the fact that this this this debate is even with it you know it's with it's not from outside the National Trust it's within our membership and then externally amplified externally as well of course I love the fact that we have more than five million members and all of them have a voice and all and some of them are concerned and some of them are delighted and and it's it's in that it's in that debate it's in that disagreement that I think we're going to find a way forward in the end so it is you know it is that breadth of constituency that breadth of audience that I think excites me when I think about us as cultural organizations and and and you know if that's the case for the National Trust then my goodness it's it's the case for for some of your work when you work in in libraries and archives and so on that really do appeal to to significantly broad constituencies I think it's only us working together that it's going to make a difference in all of this that's the thing I'm really interested in I think individually we we can do good work I'm very very interested in what we can do between our organizations to demonstrate it what it means for history to be a unifying force thank you thanks John thanks Olivet I think both of you can have your cameras on that'd be great we're going to open it up now for conversations around both your thoughts excited and exhausted I think is probably a phrase that many of us will will connect with um John I noticed on your abstract that you finished it by saying a decade of change in a single year I thought that was a really good way of describing the last sort of year to 18 months and I guess I'm interested in from hearing from both of you about whether there was anything in particular whether there was any moment and of the last 18 months that's made you think that you know things are going to change that there's going to be there's that you could detect a shift and a perception of how things might be different so perhaps Olivet I start with you and then we'll have to give John just a little bit of a breather since he went second so well yes there was this moment when after the the killing of George Floyd where there was this spontaneous movement more importantly what I observed was through my students I mean I have been working on a popular protest and and demonstrations it's fast and all that and suddenly you have this massive amount of young people who most of them coming from rather privileged backgrounds most of them having no direct connection as in dissent and slave not at all but completely immersed in this idea of social justice and protest and rewriting history and questioning actually challenging the kind of history that we my generation has been teaching and I think that's for me what a moment where I just stopped and pause and think wow these these people are teaching me this is a great lesson so how do we move and how do you take it from from there and go back to what you were saying earlier Olivet do you think to what extent do you think that might have happened in the environment that where we didn't have COVID do you think that was that was something that would have happened anyway or was the you know was the intensity the emotion of it different as a consequence of the pandemic I'm convinced of the pandemic played a huge role because we were then facing you know we had some of us had a bit more time with ourselves at homes and questioning and then the fears about well our health and our love were not seeing them and actually going on a kind of philosophical journey most of us played a huge role but in terms of young people it was also the lack of connections and the lack of you know kind of proximity to others played a huge role because we talk about mental health but this idea of not being able to express oneself actually played a huge role and they it crystallized in that movement about a rejection of a particular kind of reading of history and and and the history of police brutality and all the rest of it yeah John same question for you if I may anything in particular that kind of crystallized things for you over the last 18 months or so um change is difficult isn't it and change is is slow and I think most of us deal best with change when it's when it's forced on us and you and you don't have any any choice one of the interesting things for me caring for so many um special historic places it is is that in my mind change is very different it's very um important for those places so the thing about places that national trust cares for and and you know many of the people um listening to this talk will will will be in the same position is that is that they've always evolved they've always changed and then there's this idea somehow that as they come into the um into the care of an organization like the national trust they should stop changing and what that means in the end is stopping responding to people and in the end that will mean um uh stopping stopping being stopping being relevant so um I think that's sort of being exploded a little bit over the last year and I think that is it's that the um it's that that's an a sort of wonderful opportunity but it's that there's also a effect to people because there's there is something very important in what people hold on to from the past so um I suppose what what we've seen we've we've had to change but also we've seen that people want different things over the last year so in very simple terms for example people have wanted massive access to to countryside spaces near to peri urban countryside spaces um and and that's something that we've been able to provide but perhaps we haven't focused on much in the past so there are some obvious you know just some obvious things that are absolutely gonna force change and I think it's the same with the debate um that that's that's gone on we wouldn't have entered into this debate I'll be honest we wouldn't have chosen to enter into this debate and quite the way we have now you might think well you always knew that it was going to come if you produced a report like the one you did and only to some extent is that true but but the the the um the scale of the debates um and and at times the ferocity of the debate has surprised us so we certainly wouldn't have wouldn't have chosen that so I suppose um I suppose those couple of very practical moments just seeing that people want to use our places differently um in a practical sense but also the the the ferocity of that debate I think showed me that thinks the change the world has changed so it's changed for us and and it won't change back just stick with you for a second John I guess I'm interested to um hear about your thoughts about how you kind of how do you continue to make your existing visitors feel valued but at the same time opening up your places and and there is that you're responsible with to to new audiences how do you kind of strike that balance particularly when you know there may be very different views about what the national trust is for yeah that's a that's a great question it's one I sort of wrestle with all all the time I mean I think I think the answer is that um we we are in a wonderful position where we don't have to be all things to everyone everywhere so we the trust cares for 500 places and and and um there are different opportunities in all of those places and within each of our places there are different opportunities so we're already very used to the idea 10 years ago the national trust proactively went out of its way to be more open and accessible to families and and we've done that by making some of our places more accessible and some of some of them focus in particular on families and then within a particular property um we we you might know it or you might not know it but on the whole we tend to send kids and the families one way and we tend to send send other people another way and if you want to make you know if you want to go where the kids are and you haven't got kids it's okay but but actually that's sort of the way it it works so um I think it's not that we can keep everybody happy but it's that we can provide wonderful things we can provide the things that the people want um you know in in lots and lots of different places um I think the really tricky thing if I'm honest is that philosophically that's sort of not where I want to get to because I want to bring people together in the end you know I want the opportunity so people to come together in a garden and understand that or in a house and understand the history of that and discuss and debate it and I think it I think that's the fascinating thing and I think I said this to you before Jeff that is that that's the bit I would love if any of the people listening have examples of where they've managed to bring people with very different views and different life experiences together to talk about some of those things because I I really do believe I um yeah I used to work in in museum museums rather than the national trust and I've seen again and again the power that objects have where people work from very different perspectives come together around a single object to maybe you know through you know creative exploration or whatever come to some sort of a shared understanding if not if not the full agreement about the significance of that object so I know it can happen but how to do that at scale is a thing I'm really interested in great so we have seen that we're starting to get some questions in so I'm going to try to segue to those Oliver I was just I was thinking about you know the last year or so in many respects most of us have been starved of access you know access to historic houses but also to archives to libraries and you talk about you know re-evaluating our approaches to how we access produce and share knowledge and I just wondering if you want to pick up on that theme a little bit and talk about how we might have to do things differently and also you know the extent to which that's already changed over the last couple of decades yes that's interesting very interesting one because in 2016 I visited one of the National Archives Trust one of the National Trust's places and the experience was such that I actually wrote a chapter about it and the book just just came out right after the report was written but it wasn't good it wasn't good at all and my my point of view was that the diversifying lacked the diversifying in terms of inclusion of several histories in one place and all the acknowledge that it was very difficult to do so I have seen the the changes in certain places and I have seen the ways in which the trust but where before I know my paper was out the trust has been incorporating and I'm talking about Wales here incorporating various histories and and how incredibly difficult it's to balance several histories in Wales to have the history while the history of Wales the history of colonial history and some of the history of Wales of the history of the working class and in that particular place it was really a very difficult act to do but so I leave that to the National Trust to to deal with but in terms of the access to archival material I have seen extraordinary things being done in recent years which is as I mentioned wanted to be involved with National Archives Trust because it's a way ways in which we either go to National to Q examine material and the the wealth material that is there and available that people are not aware of but also the way that in the ways in which there's a constant dialogue between archival material because you will find some stories at a local level Bristol Newport's wherever and some of the stories are not complete simply because those archives are not talking to each other so how do we do sometimes the fact that they're not talking to each other is because we have that missing link and the missing link is the people who have been telling those stories and at a local level quite often we found people who can transmit certain kind of knowledge that is supported by archival material but they don't even know that and vice versa so I think we have a huge opportunity to to do this and it has been done as in many places and it's starting to be a kind of a way to do things to to bring up and not just story from the the top or story from the buttons but really multi-dimensional ways of doing history and the tools to read that history is it doesn't have to be academic history to be serious it has to be honest vibrant beautiful history and I think we we started we started to see that and how much do you think that one of the questions from our audience is about you know post-colonial history and how much that's moved on over the last 20 years you know the the question I guess is how much of it how mainstream has that become versus how much in the margins it used to be and do you think that do you think sorry and just to add to that what role do you think the archives have in in kind of helping to you know uncover some of these histories perhaps okay so I have two hats I'm a historian and I'm a memory scholar when it comes to memory memory studies memory studies have incorporated sociology literature and post-colonial literature and theories have been at the forefront of all these debates I'm almost tempted to say it's already happened over there and historians didn't necessarily catch up progress in history was so ever so slow that the dichotomy and things that we're seeing nowadays is that we we're fighting to to pass that small hurdle which is about having a broader understanding of what history actually is it's multi-disciplinary and I think progress is being done in one discipline in certain disciplines but not so much in others but you know eventually we get there yeah that's really good thank you just some other questions that are coming through John um just thinking about uh re-examining stories um so there's a question here about re-examining stories about cultivated natural landscapes in the light of colonial history and but also other topics things like climate change and biodiversity again and just I guess that you know this point about you know that the decade of change you know the national trust is having to reinvent itself across a whole range of issues isn't it um yeah and so in relation to that one specifically I mean to be to be very clear the um we need to think differently about all of those histories and again that's the wonder of the trust that it's it is the landscapes it's the um it's it's the Lake District and Snowdonia and the Beacon Beacons where I was a couple of weeks ago in the rain etc that um that that are that are the marvel of what we care for and that's sort of intertwined with the um with the historically purely historical properties if you want to see them see them that way and of course gardens that sit in the middle as a sort of you know hugely um cultural space that also looks towards towards the natural world so I so I think um I mean what to say except that I think all of this resonates very much across those landscapes and there are many histories that they are all designed landscapes every single one of them um uh their cultural landscape escapes and there are many histories of them that haven't been told and and a lot of those histories for example are of working people so we have you know we know that primarily the stories have been told off often are stories of of um sort of ownership rather than of working people so um yeah I think that's that's important we're doing some lovely work just doing simple things that do things like for example looking at the landscapes that are presented in the historic paintings in some of our houses and what those mean for better understanding how we can care for landscapes today and how we can achieve greater biodiversity in in our landscapes today so the the marvel of the national trust and the madness of it is sort of the opportunities to stitch all of that together I thought I might just go in a slightly different direction for the benefit of delegates we did talk um in our conversation before today's session about the personal impact of the last 18 months and I see that there is a question in in the uh the chat about you know some of the more emotional aspects and how how you've individually handled it but also how you've supported staff or in your case olivette perhaps students so I guess it'd be interesting to hear you reflect a little bit john you talked about you know threats you know we know that a lot of the conversations we're having at the minute a lot of the debates were having a highly charged and very emotional and many of the people on this um on this call may may feel that as well so perhaps if I stick with you for now john just I'd be interested to know how have you managed to maintain your own mental health and also how have you supported um colleagues you know through a period of quite um quite animated debates let's be proud um I'm so glad you asked that question because so often we separate personal lives and our professional lives don't we and of course they are they're part of the whole thing the same the same thing really um uh so yeah it has it has been it has been very difficult and um I was I was in a meeting with I sit on the exec of the national trust I was in a meeting with my colleagues just last week it was the first time we got together face to face like that and quite that way in a long time and and there was a lots of emotion in the room and what I saw was just sort of how great the toll had been on on my colleagues as well as myself and um and that does go across the organization so I think just to acknowledge that I mean I I've changed the way I I've changed the way I I live actually if I'm honest over the last year so I am um I just very simple things I walk and I run every single day or walk around every single day I never thought I'd say that and it's but it has been the greatest single change in my life and it is it has been an absolutely wonderful thing it's time to reflect and you know time to be in nature and all all all sorts of things so you know I I think there are some very practical things there um there is there is a wonder in this new world we you know these machines that we're on at the moment can tie us down to our desks but they can also free us up and um I I think Jeff somebody like you at leading a major organization you know I think the challenge is to of course we want to bring our teams together but actually just to have that flexibility to free people up to to live lives that are balanced ones to see their families to do all of the things that that mean that when they do have professional challenges whatever they are and even if they're you know it's sort of more more um I don't know smaller ones or more immediate ones or something I think I think our job as as leaders is to support our teams in their whole lives um and I know my my boss who leads the national trust that's that's very much of you and that has helped me throughout and what about you Oliver is that balance important for you and do you find that with your students are they able to kind of strike that balance at the moment it was very hard for them for everybody but for young people it was incredibly hard I'm talking about you know dramatic dramatic things you know suicide um self-arm and and things like that so they were several layers of help and support that was needed at my level it was about constant dialogue and I'm the queen of Zina and we talked we talked we talked so there's the academic relationship and the talk about you know the object the the memory the history and all that and how it's relevant to their daily lives relevant to what they care for but also at another level for my duties it was about understanding how they can actually come stronger from from from this being isolated means that you have opportunities to do things that you never learn so I know it sounds trivial but learning to sing um learning you know all these stuff that are really helpful to take your mind off things and it's also how do you engage with certain things that you when you don't have access okay so online exhibitions was a major one and and and discovering the links between the cultural sector and history through those online exhibitions actually transform the way they understand in a very academic way they understand what history is about so it was actually very useful to have this conversation so it's interesting that both of you are kind of reflecting on some of the uh the more positive aspects as well of the last 18 months of the pandemic I know John you said earlier on that you thought in in many respects this many respects National Trust was in a stronger position I wonder whether you just want to explore that a little bit further um you know in what way are you in this in the stronger position and how do you think that's going to um shape the future of the organization and and you know again just sticking on this theme of how people are feeling and how people are looking after themselves you know what do you see as the positive benefits coming out of that um I mean just you know just starting on a very practical level um we we have a we have a smaller cost base I'm sorry to introduce something as sort of basic as that but that that that means we can be more agile as an organization we can um I don't know we we can be more focused in what we're doing and I think we have been forced very hard to prioritize and it's doing things is easy not doing things is incredibly difficult you try saying to your team so what are you not going to do next year I promise you the list will be you know non-existent I I um I tried you know we have an annual planning round as lots of organizations do I try to introduce an anti-plan this year which was to to plan all the things we wouldn't do well you know it it was virtually non-existent again but um on the whole we have we have sort of prioritized and prioritized and focused and come back to the things that are the most important to us because actually we have we have less resource so um I think I think there's that but I think undoubtedly we are braver as an organization because we could either you know put our heads down and fall over or something or we could get brave and get on with it so I I think we're more courageous as individuals and um and more courageous as an organization and I think I think um I think we're thicker skinned and and that doesn't mean we're insensitive that would be the wrong thing but I think we're thicker skinned and you know the first time the first article I read in whatever national newspaper I'm not going to I'm not going to bother to name them um I it it hurts and so did the second and so did the third and so did the 50th and so did the 60th the 300th maybe hurts less and the 400th will hurt less than that so you know in a very in a very practical sense I just think we are more determined that's what we are we're more determined to get on with doing what we see as our as our core work which is caring for the places we look after being for everyone and and supporting other people to tell the whole history of the places we care for yeah and and Oliver do you feel the same do you feel more determined I mean obviously you know you have a a very deep involvement in Bristol and and what's happening there in terms of moving the conversation forward do you feel do you feel that echoes for you yes I mean I was hired in Bristol to look at the links that the university has with slavery so there's another conversation that's going on and the involvement is very much it's it's very deep another conversation is about the renaming of those buildings so a lot is happening and it's it's very dynamic and and what is interesting for me to observe is really the regional differences you know in terms of England having a conversation of should we to black teach black history or maybe not maybe yes and and in Wales where I'm actually based in live um already had this conversation already had the audit and working towards a curriculum at the regional level and and for me it's fascinating to observe how you rewrite history by by by taking the measure the measurement of society and societal debates yeah and there's a question from one of the audience there about the accessioning records and decolonising catalogs do you have any concerns you know as a historian about what that means in terms of barriers to access for researching particularly around slavery and colonialism what do you mean um what kind of barriers I'm not sure well I I suppose you know I think the questions basically asking that um you know as as um as institutions start to reconsider the challenging nature of their collections and change the way that they describe them and change you know change you know think about whether who should own some of those collections do you think that that's gonna in any way inhibit research no not at all um that we're having these conversations now because the film picture the full picture hasn't been presented we we haven't done our our job as well um scholars or historians or perhaps practitioners by presenting a fuller picture so that people I keep saying this over and over feel like a broken record but we can't change history we can present it and we can be brave enough to present the good the bad the ugly but because we haven't done that this is why we're having these conversations over and over as to what the impact on the object is we need to expose these objects we need to to bring them out and actually talk about what it what it meant and why they have been hidden but also what what happened and therefore teach that that that history some and full full disclosion really. Okay perhaps two last questions then before we have to to wind things up one from the audience then one from me Mary's so um this is pitched I don't know if you've seen it as a provocative question but this concept of torture was um you know do you think that this is a real thing and and what direction do you think it's going to lead institutions like the national trust not just the national trust but you know institutions like how like national archives as well and the university sector over the coming years. Me or John? Oh sorry yeah all about we'll stick with you and then we'll go to John. Okay I'm amused by that we have the clash of civilization now we have the cultural wars and that we have there's another one I've forgotten anyway there are a few of them what it actually means is who gets to talk about culture what is culture what is culture means several definitions and it depends on the context of place and so on and so forth so by saying cultural war there's this implication that there's one culture that determines what a culture is and I find that quite amusing because we are beating around the bush and therefore not tackling the main question which is what history is this whose history is this how do we tell those stories and until we've done that we keep going about all these phrases to die for me a bit pointless really. John? Yeah I think it's an artificial construct I think it's really unhelpful and I don't think we're part of a cultural war and I think actually we need to determinedly not be part of a cultural war and I think it's only in the interest of a very few people to have something that's called a cultural war is interesting we at coming out of that report we consulted about 3000 people from people of color people who lived experience academics volunteers our members and staff and so on about what they felt about the report and about next steps and there were there were so many different views such sort of so much disagreement and yet absolute consensus that in the end everybody agreed that our role as the National Trust was to to tell the whole history of our places or support other people in in doing that so I think we can make actually too too much of the difference probably and and my proof for that would be that if you go to one of our properties and you know million millions of visits every every month this is not I'm afraid to tell you this is not what people are talking about it doesn't mean they don't want to be part of a conversation but actually it's not what's fun to their mind and what's fun to their mind is is to have access to a beautiful interesting place a place where they can spend time with the people that they care for as a place where they can they can feel better and understand a little bit more about themselves but actually they don't feel they're part of a any sort of a war and the vast majority of our members don't either so I think that's worth just bearing in mind that this is a this this very polarized conversation is is is quite a small one to be honest and it feels as though it's the whole a society it's not if it even feels that it's the whole of our sectors it's not having this conversation so that we should be realistic about that I think we're pretty much out of time any last minute thoughts from either of you on I think we've tried our best there today to try and span the gap between philosophical and practical but any views that you want to impart as a kind of as a as a departing note John perhaps start with yourself yeah my thank you my my my last one I am a very practical person you might have sense sense that and I'm I think there was a question which is you know I can't quite remember what it was but something about what's you know what is the opportunity for us to to come together on this and I have to be honest I I don't know the answer to that I wish I did because I sort of tell you and then it would happen and I I'm a bit frustrated that there isn't more opportunity for us to come together I do think it's not it's not by being part of a cultural war it's not by trying to oppose something if I'm honest it's almost the opposite it's by proactively and deliberately demonstrating history as a unified force and how to do history well and widely and democratically but I think it's a bit more than doing that individually as organizations so if any of you I'm on twitter if anybody has any ideas if anybody wants to wants to work with me on that I'd be very pleased to hear from you okay thanks John Oliver to any final remarks from yourself um yeah my my the final remark would be be brave be brave and you know learning about histories that are disturbing are not don't take anything away from you then enrich you they challenge you but enriching ultimately we're all stuck on this earth we need to make it work so they just learn more and more about other people and that that's the beauty of it