Father and son coffee shop owners Mike and Jamie Bristow have become brothers, having been initiated side by side as members of Eccles Lodge No. 8632 in Lincolnshire

Their double initiation as father and son is rare, and resulted from a masonic journey started several years ago.

It began over not one cup of coffee, but hundreds, because it grew from conversations they had when they used to run a market stall in Louth near fellow stallholder Mark Brown, who is also the Lodge secretary. Having taken their first tentative steps, both are excited about what lies ahead.

Mike, 54, said: ‘We’re on a journey. It’s a new road of discovery for us, and we don’t know where it’s going. That’s what makes it so exciting.’

Jamie, 29, agreed, explaining that they had turned down the opportunity to visit the lodge room at an open day. ‘We wanted it to be as new as possible, so the less we knew, the better.

‘It was a fabulous experience, and brilliant when we later saw someone else going through their first degree, because we had been through it ourselves.’

Having watched someone else’s initiation later provided their first opportunity to share the festive board with other members in the body of the room. Jamie added: ‘It was our first meal sitting with everyone else. It was good to chat with people and get to know them.’