Gina Davidson : Loss of trust in heritage body

HERITAGE is one of those words, the meaning of which you feel you know instinctively. As a Scot, my heritage is the glens and mountains, the mists and moors, the heather and whisky . . . and childhood holidays in Sutherland.

As an Edinburgher it's the Castle, Princes Street Gardens, the museums, the art galleries, the zoo, the greenery and even the housing estates.

And as the daughter of two hard-working people, my heritage from them is a strong work ethic, a support for the Labour movement and for Hearts (cue the abuse).

All of these things, however ephemeral, have value to me. To others, heritage will mean different things, but the value attached will be just as valid.

Most of our national heritage, however, is more solid. It's in the gardens and castles and monuments of our historical past, which say something about our nation and our people, which is why we like to think that our heritage is something which should be treasured and protected.

In the main it is, by government bodies like Historic Scotland, pressure groups like the Cockburn Association, and charities like Edinburgh World Heritage and, of course, the National Trust for Scotland.

But heritage isn't cheap to keep. And for those organisations such as the NTS, which manage and run a lot of the nation's heritable property, it is an expensive business to keep going.

However, the trust's own definition of just what "heritage" is must now be called into question.

Given its financial difficulties it is understandable that the NTS is looking to make as much money as it can from its properties - but bungee jumping in the Killiecrankie gorge? Highwire treetop courses at the 16th-century Crathes Castle? And soul nights at Fyvie Castle? All good fun, but not exactly part and parcel of our heritage.

However, I have no beef with the trust implementing such activities as a way of drawing in more visitors. It just rankles when these innovations for what has been a rather dusty organisation are spun to us as a new and "challenging" way to "present the history and context" of trust properties. What nonsense - they are just about the money.

And I like it even less when these new exciting activities are being introduced at a time when the trust has decided to offload other places, which it now claims have no "heritage value".

Places like the Suntrap Garden at Gogar, and the community garden in Duddingston, which were almost a footnote in trust chief executive Kate Mavor's defence of her organisation in this paper on Tuesday. It's that kind of airy dismissal of places which are held dear to people, who believe very firmly in their heritage value, which riles.

The philanthropic people who donated these gardens to the organisation - namely Christina McNiven and George Boyd Anderson - believed they were worth giving to the nation to enjoy. And the trust in accepting them into its care must have believed so too.

So how, years on, have they lost their heritage value? Perhaps through neglect by the trust, which now in its drive to be a commercial body rather than a charity with moral backbone, has decided they are not up to muster?

The NTS needs to remember that heritage belongs to all of us - not just to it - and its audacity in suggesting that those who do believe Suntrap and the Duddingston garden are of value should fork out to buy them back so the public can continue to enjoy these gardens is completely immoral.

In this age of austerity and recession, surely it's incumbent on the trust to make places which it owns, and which people can reach without having to travel vast distances, as popular as possible, rather than selling to the highest bidder?

The National Trust is the caretaker of our heritage. It may own these places in legal terms, but only because they were "gifted" to it. Should it not then be the trust's gift to give it back? It's the moral thing to do.

It should remember that if it wants to continue to be a beneficiary in the wills of Scottish philanthropists.

Power walking

LAST Sunday I was, in the words of Kate Bush, running up that hill. Arthur's Seat to be precise, along with 5000 or so other women in various states of dress - but mostly in pink.

By the time I got back down my face was the same hue as my T-shirt. But the Race for Life had made me realise something - that these kinds of collective, life-affirming runs are the new front of the feminist movement.

Not that those in their tutus and cowboy hats will have thought that as they waited to begin, but events like the Moonwalk are the only times these days where women march with one voice about a female struggle.

Yes there was the recent Slutwalk, but that, as far as I know, was a one-off. And yes, I know men too can suffer breast cancer, and all of us are affected by other cancers. But it seemed to me, reading the messages about just why so many women were there on Sunday, that the annual Race for Life and Moonwalk are the 21st century's answer to the burning of bras - and decidedly more useful.