East Kent

Responsible Brethren in the Province of East Kent will doubtless be putting their minds to how to improve – if possible – on their very successful series of Open Roadshows which took place in 1998. The project got underway on 24 July at Canterbury’s Masonic Temple where journalists from Meridian TV, Radio Kent, Kent Messenger and the Canterbury Courier met the RW the Provincial Grand Master, John Bonomy OBE, JP and his Project Team. According to The Provincial (East Kent’s Newsletter), “the coverage we achieved through television and press has resulted in a positive response from the public”. One visitor to the St Luke’s Ave lodge in Broadstairs, Miss M Cowell (aged 27), wrote to the Isle of Thanet Gazette to say: “I was fascinated by the regalia, its symbolism and especially the origin of the Freemasons – which is not nearly as ‘sinister’ as I had feared! I defy anyone who actually visited on that day with a cynical attitude to Freemasonry to have not changed their attitude, or at the very least had some rather ‘juicy’ food for thought!”
    One of the highlights co-inciding with the openness project, was the presentation of a cheque for £20,000 from the Province to Kate Chivers, Chief Executive of the Kent Air Ambulance Trust on 22 August. Ms Chivers said the gift was “absolutely stunning” and promised that it would be well used in service to the people of Kent.

Essex

Donald Bond, Almoner of Tuscan Lodge No 6067 would like to know if Mrs Florence Palmer is the oldest Masonic Widow in the UK. Mrs Palmer, known as ‘Jobey’ in her youth, was born in 1896 in Highbury, North London. She reached 102 years of age on 4 September 1998. Her late husband, W Bro CH Palmer was initiated into Tuscan Lodge at Romford in 1952. Bro Charles was installed as Master of the Lodge in 1966, maintaining an active interest in the Craft until his death in 1973. A truly remarkable lady, Mrs Palmer is a keen conversationalist, with a recall second to none. One memory is of having played as a child in a field in Highbury, later to become home of the Arsenal Football Club! Jobey has one son, one granddaughter and one great grandson and still lives in the family home at Burnham-on-Crouch, Essex, where she is still very active and appreciative of life.

In last year’s Spring edition, we mentioned Bro JG Amos’s (Earl Amherst Lodge No 3230) Lodge Cross Reference and Family Tree Database, as demonstrated at the London Masonic Centre Open Day. In order to raise money for the New Masonic Samaritan Fund, Bro Amos developed a computer application which details the genealogy of all lodges under the United Grand Lodge of England’s jurisdiction and which automatically constructs lodge family trees. A package costing £12 has been produced (all proceeds to the NMSF) which includes a clearly set-out 32-page installation and user guide. All those interested in this fascinating softwear should contact Bro Amos at 21 The Spinneys, Eastwood, Leigh-on-Sea, Essex SS9 5QZ (Tel 01277 253935 [day] 01702 520269 [evening]).

Merseyside

Readers of last year’s Summer issue may recall our announcement of W Bro Wilfrid Wallworth’s 60 years in the Craft. W Bro Wilf was installed as Worshipful Master of the Lodge of Tranquility No 3877 in the Wirral on 12 October 1998. Bro Wilf is 100 years old!
    The meeting was attended by the RW Provincial Grand Master of West Lancashire, Colin Penty Wright, together with two Assistant Provincial Grand Masters and numerous Grand and Provincial Grand Masters of the Province. Confined to a wheelchair, W Bro Wilf enjoyed the ceremony with its unique perambulations.
    Last November also saw the 80th Anniversary of the Armistice and W Bro Wallworth was at the centre of media attention as one of an exceedingly small number of local men who could still tell of the terrible carnage. On December 14, Wilf was invited to the London Library, along with other brave veterans, to receive the Legion d’Honneur medal from the French Military Attaché, Colonel Michel Perrodon.
    Wilfrid Wallworth, a fusilier in the tough regiment of Royal Inniskillens, was seriously wounded four times: in the legs, shoulder, arms and head. In an interview with the Liverpool Echo (2.11.98), W Bro Wilf told of how his “worst moment was in the German Spring offensive. My legs were in badages and part of my arm had been blown off, but the medic declared me A1 OK and I was made to march to the front. I was in so much pain I couldn’t even carry my own kit-bag. You soon grew up in the trenches. You got to the point where dead bodies were commonplace. Sometimes you would see whole ranks of your colleagues just being mown down like hay in a field. And the thing about poppies has not been exaggerated. They were everywhere, in great wide banks like roads. They even grew in the trenches.”

Northumbria

Capt. Malcolm O Binns, Treasurer of the Reserve Forces Lodge of Northumbria No 2666 (Motto: ‘Defence not Defiance’) has written to FMT, wondering if this lodge is the only lodge of its kind, military lodges generally being formed on a Service, Corps or Regimental basis. Membership of the lodge is exclusively composed of officers and warrant officers of the Royal Naval Reserve, the Territorial Army, the Regular Reserve and regular officers who have served with local reserve forces.
    The lodge is now into its 101st year, its centenary having been celebrated last May at the splendid Neville Hall, Newcastle upon Tyne. Originally formed as the Victoria Commemoration Reserve Forces Lodge in October 1897 to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria (the name was changed in 1929), numbers reached a peak after World War II and, as Captain Binns puts it: “have declined steadily since, in line with Freemasonry generally and as successive governments have cut back on the capability of this country to defend itself.”
    The lodge is run on the lines of a Service Mess and dinner is non-speaking, non-firing, non-singing and now almost non-smoking. Snuff, however, is still taken!

Staffordshire

A male voice choir has been formed under the Presidency of Provincial Grand Master, RW Bro Kevin Chawner. Directed by W Bro Eric Bennett, the choir has already sung for the Centenary meeting of Foster Gough Lodge No 2706 (the Installed Masters’ Lodge of Staffordshire), a September Evensong in Lichfield Cathedral, and joined the Masonic Choir of Northamptonshire for Evensong at Peterborough Cathedral on 21 November. It now looks forward to the service in Lichfield Cathedral on 23 May, traditionally attended by members in the Province.
    The choir welcomes new members (especially tenors) who will receive sympathetic auditions from the Musical Director. The choir is blessed in having a talented accompanist in W Bro Ian Wass. For more information, please contact W Bro David Leigh in Stone (01785 814305).

Warwickshire

The Provincial Grand Lodge of Warwickshire will be holding an Open Day at their headquarters on Saturday 20 February 1999. The Warwickshire Masonic Temple can be found at 2 Stirling Road, Edgbaston, Birmingham B16 9SB (Tel: 0121 454 4422. Fax: 0121 456 2205).
    The tireless Provincial Grand Master, Stanley A Lates, will be found at The Craft exhibition in the Main Lodge Room. Grand Superintendent Richard Wallis will man the Royal Arch exhibition in Lodge Room No 4 while Assistant Provincial Grand Masters, Michael Price CBE and Stephen Ellison will look after the Gallery’s Museum. Charity exhibitions will be erected in Lodge Room No 2 and manned by the Provincial Almoner, William Aitken and Harry Owen, the Provincial Charity Steward. Talks will commence at about 11.00am and will be repeated at half-hourly intervals. Five videos will be shown. In Room 3: The Freemasons; Freemasonry: Today, Tomorrow and Grand Lodge: The Ultimate Tour, while Education for Life and The Work of the Royal Masonic Benevolent Institution will be shown in Lodge Room 6. The Buttery Bar will be open for coffee from 10.45am and open for lunches between noon and 2.00pm. Be on the Square and be there!

West Lancashire

The Masonic Clay Pigeon Society of West Lancashire hosted the Annual Inter-Provincial Masonic Clay Pigeon Societies Competition for the Watson Eden Trophy on Sunday 4 October 1998 at the Blackpool Gun Club. Held now for some 12 years, the host Province were joined by the Clay Pigeon Societies of Cumberland and Westmoreland, East Lancashire, Yorkshire West Riding and, for the first time, Cheshire.
    On a fine but windy afternoon, the host club retained the trophy in a closely contested shoot. Cumberland and Westmoreland shooters were runners-up. The Vice-President of the West Lancs Society, V Wor Bro Thomas Blackburn, Deputy Provincial Grand Master, presented the Watson Eden Trophy to W Bro Brian Jackson, Society Chairman of the West Lancashire team (see photo), whose members scored an agregate of 194-240. They were W Bros M Clowes, S Anderson, T Lee, I Shaw, D Carr and A Hammond.
    The Secretary of the West Lancashire society, W Bro Kevin Langshaw, invites other Provinces and individuals to join future Inter Provincial competitions. Membership details may be obtained from him by phoning 01257 451177.

Worcestershire

Brethren often call for a straightforward document to help them explain Freemasonry to friends, relatives, new and prospective members and general enquirers. The Province of Worcestershire has produced such a work in handy A5 format, consisting of 60 pages by W Bro JH Grainger, Past Provincial Junior Grand Warden and a member of the Robin Hood Lodge No 5877. Entitled Freemasonry: Fact not Fiction, chapter headings include: What is Freemasonry?; When and how did Freemasonry Originate?; The Organisation of Freemasonry; Is Freemasonry a Secret Society?; Is Freemasonry a Religion?; What does Freemasonry Cost? - as well as chapters on anti-Masonry, lodge structure, premises and furnishings, clothing and regalia, ‘Side’ Degrees, Women and Freemasonry, and, lastly, Openness. The book is easy to read and contains sound scholarship. Its description of the nature of the Craft is taken from an old German encyclopaedia, published in 1900 and is well chosen: “Freemasonry is the activity of closely united men who, employing symbolic forms borrowed from the masons’ trade and architecture, work for the welfare of mankind, striving to bring about a universal League of Man, aiming morally to ennoble themselves and others, to bring together a body of men, banded for the common purpose of intellectual, moral and social improvement.”
    The book is available for £2.50 (inc postage) from the Provincial Grand Secretary at Provincial Grand Lodge Offices, 94 Birmingham Road, Bromsgrove, Worcestershire B61 ODF. 75p of every copy sold will go to Worcestershire’s Festival for the Grand Charity.