Patrick Kidd Prefers Probity to Pirates

It was ironic that when police caught up with Allen Stanford, the Texan billionaire accused of perpetrating a ‘massive’ fraud, in February they found him in Fredericksburg, a Virginia town named after Frederick Louis, the eldest son of George II and an important figure in masonic history, who was known as ‘Poor Fred’ because he spent so much gambling on cricket matches.
     Stanford, of course, was best known in England not for his financial services company but because he had landed his helicopter on the lawn at Lord's Cricket Ground last summer and challenged England to a winner-takes-all $20 million match against his team of ‘Superstars’.
     There has been much wise-after-the-event criticism of the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) for getting into bed with Stanford, but if the U.S. federal authorities had not then found fault with Stanford's finances, why should a mere sport governing body? Where the ECB failed, however, was in its judgment of Stanford's character. Many opined that the grinning Texan with, in the words of a former editor of Wisden, ‘a cad's moustache’, would damage the reputation of English cricket the moment he wheeled out a crateload of dollars from his helicopter and proclaimed that he found cricket boring.
     His motives never looked honourable and the image worsened during the match in Antigua last November when Stanford was seen jiggling the wife of the England wicketkeeper on his thigh. When MCC used to run world cricket, ‘rum’ people were to be steered clear of and Stanford always appeared more rum than Captain Morgan.
     Lodge committees are often called upon to judge the character of a would-be brother. While many of our new brethren come recommended by those within the Craft, it is common for interested parties to come off the street, as it were, and be steered towards a lodge. The officers of that lodge, on little personal knowledge of the candidate, must test his probity and intentions. The ECB should have been more diligent in doing so with Stanford.
     That he was free and of mature age was in no doubt. The ‘tongue of good report’ was not necessarily in his favour but you always have to be sceptical about unproven rumour. Did he - does every would-be mason - approach out of honest motives? Hmm. Was he ‘uninfluenced by mercenary or unworthy motive?’ No, he was open about being in it to make money. Did he have a ‘genuine desire of knowledge?’ Categorically no. Those questions should have raised alarm bells in the ECB and led to a ball or three being placed in the ‘nay’ drawer.
     Cricket and masonry should be comfortable bedfellows. In both, it is important to play square and straight. Honesty and decency are encouraged. Fellowship and teamwork matter strongly. Cricketers and masons have to accept bad luck with equanimity and, in the beautiful words of the fifth section of the first emulation lecture, we are taught ‘not to boast of anything but to give heed to our ways, to walk uprightly and with humility.’ The festive board (or luncheon interval) is integral.
     It was for these reasons that my lodge, Kirby No. 2818, held a charity cricket match two summers ago to raise funds for our Relief Chest. The opposition was the P.G. Wodehouse Society's team, ‘The Gold Bats’. It was an appropriate choice because Wodehouse was a fellow member of the rolled-up trouser leg-before-wicket fraternity. The humourist was initiated into Jerusalem Lodge No. 197, in 1929, a Lodge whose members have also included John Wilkes, the political reformer, and Sir Henry Irving, the actor. Wodehouse resigned his membership in 1934 after inadvertently slandering the screenwriter Roland Pertwee, a fellow Jerusalem member, but masonic phrases appear frequently in Wodehouse's work.
     Lord Emsworth, in Blandings Castle, is told of a magical word to mutter to his sow that is ‘to the pig world what the masonic grip is to the human.’ Galahad Threepwood, in Heavy Weather, tells Beach, the butler, that he can talk freely because ‘the meeting is tiled.’ Dinners are often called festive boards.
     The ‘Kirby Strollers’ were beaten heavily by the Gold Bats but everyone had an enjoyable day and more than £2,000 was raised. Last summer we lost two more matches - our charity extends to opposition bowlers as well as to the collection plate - and will again play twice in 2009. Any reader who wants to join us will be guaranteed a good day - and no rum sorts.

Patrick Kidd is a journalist with The Times and a member of Kirby Lodge No. 2818. Kirkby Strollers’ matches in 2009 will be at Marble Hill House in Twickenham on April 19 and Audley End in Essex on August 9. All are welcome.