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Being perceived as the safe keeper of all national treasures has its comical moments - just ask Julian Lloyd. 'The most bizarre one was when the model Jordan wanted to have her breasts reduced,' laughs the National Trust's head of media. 'There was a campaign by the Sun to 'save Jordan's jugs for the nation' and we were asked to front it. We had to decline; we do get a wide range of slightly odd enquiries.'

Given the issues Britain's biggest private landowner needs to deal with, Lloyd, 46, can afford to fend off such 'helpful' suggestions. After four years in the job, he's used to an eclectic mix of campaigns, lobbying, land disputes and conservation matters.

In January his team had to deal with a treasure-hunting free-for-all when the wreck of the MSC Napoli container ship ended up on a National Trust beach at Branscombe in Devon. It recently turned down a request to buy Dumfries House, a Scottish stately home designed by Robert and John Adams for the fifth Earl of Dumfries, which was later saved by a Prince of Wales-led consortium. Completed in 1758, the Palladian mansion boasts original Thomas Chippendale cabinets and work by Edinburgh craftsmen Alexander Peter and William Mathie.

And it's not that long since the organisation was the centre of controversy when it accepted the gift of a house in Woolton, Liverpool where John Lennon grew up. (It already owns Sir Paul McCartney's childhood home.)

'Everybody has a view on the trust and what it should save - and nobody is frightened of expressing it,' says Lloyd. 'The Jordan approach is typical in that we can get enquiries from anywhere under the sun: we even got asked to comment on Iraqis looting museums in Baghdad. There's quite a disparity between the sublime and the ridiculous.'

Little teams mean a lot

 To cover the communications challenges of the trust's operations and its varied interests in agriculture, conservation and heritage, Lloyd runs a six-person central media team. There are another eight people devoted to magazines and the internet, and the trust's 11 regions in England, Wales and Northern Ireland (Scotland has its own separate National Trust) each have their own regional communications personnel.

'We think it's a very small team,' says Lloyd. 'A charity like the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds has probably got two or three times that number, while English Heritage has two or three times as many people as we have centrally. Our number is not a lot when you realise that we are the UK's largest non-government landowner and own 10 percent of the coastline of England, Wales and Northern Ireland, 250,000 hectares of land, 300 historic properties and gardens, and 10,000 built structures such as farm buildings.

'About 100 mn people go on our property at least once a year. We get 13 mn people coming into pay-for-entry properties and have 3.5 mn members, making us Europe's biggest conservation exercise and the UK's second biggest membership organisation after the AA. A lot of people think looking after historic houses is all we do - it's not, though that is an important part.'

Lloyd's route to the job prepared him for the challenges he has to deal with from the trust's Swindon head office and a small base in Westminster. After beginning in journalism at Reed Publishing's information technology magazines, he moved to United Business Media, where he helped develop the company's media strategy. Then he took a masters degree in environmental management at the University of London and an MBA at London Business School.

'It's been an easy transition for me from the corporate sector to the charity sector because corporate development and strategy are things both sectors have to take into account,' Lloyd explains. 'Plus, I already had a good understanding of environmental issues.'

Lloyd believes in dealing with the media openly to dispel perceptions about the trust, which dates back to 1895. 'Some people still view us as being dyed-in-the-wool conservationists and environmentalists,' he says. 'We sometimes get picked out as stereotypes in tweeds or in aprons serving cream teas, but what we really are is a great long-term success story.'

A varied brief

The challenges are significant. 'The outbreak of foot and mouth disease, which happened before I joined, was a huge challenge for us financially,' Lloyd points out. 'Suddenly our land was shut, which had a significant impact. More recently, I woke up one morning and found the Napoli had turned up wrecked on one of our beaches. There was a major clean-up involved and there was a running looting story.

'We needed to understand the scope of the environmental damage at the same time the police were trying to get in to guard the assets, when the boat should not have been there in the first place. Most of the interviews were done by our regional teams and people who were actually dealing with the issues they were being quizzed about - that really helped. We were using people who knew their subject really well. We are not a spin-led organisation. We have the advantage that we are extremely well trusted and recognised. People can rely on us telling it straight.'

The trust also hits the headlines over its stance on issues. It banned hunting deer with dogs on its land in 1997 - well before the law was changed to forbid hunting with more than two dogs. It is also campaigning against a proposed expansion of Stansted Airport because it owns the adjacent Hatfield Forest, where there are 900 ancient trees and a vibrant wildlife habitat.

'We don't tend to make calls for action on subjects where we cannot claim to be represented as a practitioner,' says Lloyd. 'We would not expect to talk about whale culling, for example. Our issues tend to be associated with our role as a landowner so we're interested in agriculture, climate change, local and seasonal food, wildlife and cultural heritage. We are also a micro-generator of renewable energy.

'If you open any newspaper any day, you will find between 10 and 15 stories that will be germane to the National Trust, whether it's a decision to cull badgers or the looting of ancient heritage in Iraq. We have to keep track of all these things.'

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