ARTICLE - Closeted In A Euphemism

Jnanasalin and I, whilst recently visiting Felbrigg Hall, renewed our membership of The National Trust. After letting it lapse during the pandemic, when no one was going nowhere. This time we chose to cancel our Disney + subscription to contribute towards paying the monthly direct debit. It simply felt culturally better value to support to the Trust in it's conservation and informative educational work. We've also appreciated the efforts it has made to reflect a broader range of perspectives, from which to view the history of its properties. For which it has been getting a lot of stick from the startled horses of the right wing media.

A few years ago, some of the Trust's volunteers who worked at Felbrigg Hall, were in high dudgeon. Their wrath was being aimed at the National Trust itself, for openly revealing that the last owner of the Hall, Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer, who gave the house to the Trust, was a homosexual. All sorts of accusations were thrown at the Trust; of disrespecting his right not to be publicly outed after death; of virtue signaling; of re-writing history; of being high handed and insensitive to their volunteers feelings about it; that this wasn't part of the Trusts remit to do this. Some of this may indeed be true, but ,oh, that list went on and on. 

Maybe forcing their volunteers to wear gay flag striped lanyards was always going to push buttons, big time. There were such aspects in the way this historical emphasis was rolled out by the National Trust, that was indeed very clunky and came across as unsympathetic to some of the volunteers evident unease. This incident proved to be one of the early shots in what has since become lazily referred to as the 'culture war'. A disagreement often generational in nature

Whenever a person, a whole subsection of society or simply a fact, is left out of history, there is usually an uncomfortable truth wilfully being buried.  It's presence, if mentioned at all, being suggested through euphemism, or a knowingly shorthand expression empty of substantive detail. In the case of slavery, a previous owner might be referred to as - making his fortune in the colonies, in the sugar trade, or working for The Royal Africa Company, and nothing more would be asked for or revealed. You have to be further informed in order to be able to read between those lines. 

Those beautifully appointed rooms, that we are all now privileged to walk through, effectively white wash any hidden dirty laundry from your mind. They've performed this role from the time they were made, and continue to do so today. We don't want to know really, what inhumane atrocity paid for it, because it makes it harder to walk around with one's admiration unblemished. In the often rampantly camp fantasy of stately home's regal interiors, one hears the curtain swags screaming 'gay' from every gilded baroque tieback and pelmet flourish, but please do not even whisper the word out loud.

When it comes to a gay noble gentleman or woman, even at the time they were casually referred to by an extensive range of euphemisms. They were 'musical' ,'light on their feet', 'a confirmed bachelor/spinster', 'a flamboyant aesthete', 'an outrageous bonvivant and party goer', 'colourful', 'lively vivacious company', 'a sensitive type'. The sort of thing that Peter Cook perfectly lampooned with the phrase describing Norman Scott in the Thorpe trial as ' a self confessed player of the pink oboe'. The English love innuendo, a nudge and a wink, rather than a clear up front no nonsense statement. That would be all a bit too European. 

Robert Wyndham Ketton-Cremer

In truth, non of us know, given today's comparatively open attitude to being gay in the UK, whether Ketton-Cremer would have continued being so private and guarded about his sexuality? If given the choice of not living under the threatening context of illegality, the possibility of prison, of your sexual orientation being publicly revealed, your reputation ruined, of being threatened with chemical castration. Who knows how he might have chosen to live, should that surrounding climate of fear be removed. 

As most volunteers who work for the National Trust are recently retired, they are often of a generation for whom being gay would simply not to be openly talked about. Some of them at Felbrigg had known or worked for Ketton-Cremer. His homosexuality was of course known of, but he certainly never felt compelled to flaunt it.  Perhaps it was more pleasant for all concerned if such things remained under the carpet. It maybe, that even he saw being a homosexual as fundamentally not a nice thing to call anyone. He would not be the first homosexual to either wish he were otherwise, or experience personal shame. The Trust's volunteers probably were prepared to live and let live, but just drew a line at making such an obviously public fuss about it. These types of views are all vestigial remnants of an older biblical one, that homosexuality is inherrently befouling of humanity, and hence distasteful and unmentionable. They gently turn a half conscious personal dislike into some one else's self censorship.

And that I guess is it. Unless you are the person or persons being left out, being asked to self censor, or reduced to a euphemism, it probably seems not a problem, its just fine left as it is - what is all this hoohaa about representation, visibility and diversity? As a gay man, I like knowing Ketton-Cremer was queer, because I feel that ought not to be concealed, but given its place in his and the hall's history. No one ever chooses to become an example. That is usually bestowed upon a person or group by the perspective of history. 

Ketton-Cremer appears to have been a modest bookish man, living a quiet life, not rocking any visible boat. Though he probably didn't see it as such, he was not just hiding behind the elegant frontage of Felbrigg Hall, his home, but also inside the closet of euphemism. None the less, over fifty years after his death, being outed seems hardly an affront. He was a real person with his own individual interests, loves and enthusiasms. Any struggles he had in living a secretive emotional life, I can empathise with. I've been there too, its a very common experience. How he survived and thrived, in this mode of lifestyle, I could call quietly heroic.

He represents a particular type of gay man's experience. Not an exuberant or flamboyant icon, not flying the flag in your face, but shyly withdrawn, as self contained as Tupperware. Which points us toward others who also just wanted to live and love a quietly tempered life, but may not have avoided being more cruelly outed and named, in a more hostile era. Because their lack of wealth or status could not sufficiently shield them from violence or the law. This also, we need to know.

Following any history trail, we have to look more closely to spot what signs and traces there may be left, of the left out. History is not being rewritten, but broadened in its investigative scope. This is an act of salvage, recovering facts, memories, experiences and dreams. And we all will be the better for these not being read through a partially obscuring veil of language. Let us talk about the individual situation, the person, with empathy and understanding, be specific and alive to their personal history, its value, its own distinct qualities and wealth of experience. To speak clearly of what their lives were like in vivid detail. Paint a fuller picture. See people for what they were, not what we'd prefer them to be.