Dear Editor,

First of all, may I say how delighted I am, as great-grand-daughter of Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley (one of the Trust's founders), to read about the excellent work of Restore Trust – I hope that in the end you will succeed in bring the Trust back to its original purpose, as propounded by its founders.

I have just read your latest newsletter quoting complaints about the fare at National Trust cafés.  Canon Rawnsley, who preached the virtues of home cooking and healthy eating, would I feel be as furious about this issue as he would be about the manner in which the Trust has abandoned the principles of conservation on which he and his co-founders placed such emphasis when the Trust was established in 1895, and to which he devoted the remaining 25 years of his life as Hon. Secretary.

It speaks for itself that the National Trust declined to publish the new and extended biography of Hardwicke Rawnsley which my colleague Dr. Michael Allen and I have spent the last five years researching, now published by The New Beaver Press, and is not stocking it in any of its shops.  I am told on good authority that the Trust policy for their shops is more concerned with the overall visual appearance of the articles on sale, rather than any relevance to the objectives or history of the National Trust.

Yours faithfully,

Dr. Rosalind Rawnsley (great-grand-daughter of Canon Hardwicke Rawnsley)
Loire Valley, France