Memories of a Freemason – Howard Bott PPJGW

I was installed in 1996 and am proud to say that I was The Lodge of Dawn’s 50th Master. I was also lucky enough to have the Provincial Grand Master at the time, RW Bro. J Trevor Broadley, in attendance too. He was a great supporter of The Lodge of Dawn.

There are two things that stand out for me from the installation; The first was that RW Bro. Broadley got very cross when we took a break for tea and biscuits (which we always do). Apparently, we didn’t ‘call off’ properly ie close and then re-open, which made him very annoyed – this is something that we now do correctly! The second thing that I well remember is that, for every new Officer, when you give out the collars, the WM always says a few words to each person. For the Organist, Bro. Jack Fixman (a brilliant musician) I started my little speech then broke into singing “…there’s no business like showbusiness……”.

My installing Master was W Bro. Edwin Schiller, which was really nice as we’d been initiated together, back in 1977, and followed each other up the ladder. I remember him saying to me, when were both only Entered Apprentices, “see all those people over there in the blue and gold, isn’t it impressive that they have all learnt all the bits off by heart!” As well as being the 50th Master of the lodge I was also the first Senior Steward when we moved to Castle Grove.

My Festive Board was a very grand affair, as they all were back then. We had flower posies on the tables and masonic mints with the coffee, similar to the ones Bro. Gelman does for us today. The ones we had were supplied by a chocolatier from Wetherby. We always allowed brethren to take the posies home, in exchange for a charity donation.

Our Masters Circle was very active, and we had about 26 members, and I think for most installations we had a minimum of at least 17 Masters in attendance. Our current Provincial Grand Master, RW Bro. David Pratt was one of the Masters in our circle. Unfortunately, there’s only about six of us left who attend Circle evenings.

I had a very successful social during my year in office which was an afternoon tea at the Box Tree in Ilkley organised by the late Bro. Neil Solden, who was a personal friend of the owners at time. Neil managed to persuade them to open the restaurant exclusively to the Lodge, which was very unusual at that time.

My Ladies Night was held at Rudding Park, with Bro Jonathan Grant as my Senior Steward organising it. He told me “there are only two key things needed for a great Ladies Night – the venue and the band”. Rudding Park ticked the box as a venue, and we had a 7-piece live band called City Limits, and there were around 130 guests in attendance, and each of the ladies received a gift of an orchid in a box.

My father was a Mason, but a non-active one. After he died, I was approached by the late W Bro. Maxwell Vites, to see if I was interested in becoming a Freemason. He explained that although there was a long waiting list, because he was going to be in The Chair he would be able to bring my application as a candidate forward. I was lucky that my initiation was the Christmas lodge meeting so the Festive Board was quite a grand affair, with meat supplied by Frank Rosenhead, carved at the end of each table by the stewards, all wearing butcher’s aprons and straw boaters.

As mentioned by W Bro. Lyons, I also had to ‘host’ the brethren immediately after my initiation…. The only issue was that I was living at home with my mother at her flat the time…..!! I also remember George Albaster coming up to me there and asking “What was that word you were told in the ceremony that you are not supposed to mention?” Trying to impress him I proudly said “B…” at which point he slapped me on the back and said “YOU ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO MENTION THAT WORD!”

The other thing that I remember is that, obviously I couldn’t stay in the subsequent two lodge ceremonies as they were second degrees, but despite this George made me bring guests, even though I couldn’t sit with them for most of the ceremony and yet still had to pay for their dinner, which at the time seemed a bit unfair to me. George was very strict – you had to do as you were told.

As a new initiate I was asked to learn the North East Corner almost immediately, but only to deliver it in a practise, not even the regular ceremony. We had our practises in the basement at Great George Street, which was like a steaming hot dungeon. But the plus side was that after the practise, all the juniors would write a drinks order on a piece of paper which would be given to a junior who would take it up to the bar. The drinks would then be ready on the bar, and paid for by the Master. I’m sure all our current juniors would like that tradition to be re-instated….. 😉 We also played a game called ‘The Swizzler’ after practises when we went for a meal, usually Fish & Chips at Marlows, which ended up with one person getting a free meal.

We often had entertainment at Festive Boards. The late W Bro. Howard Myers’ barbershop quartet (with Stuart Wineberg, Clive Landey and Andy Milner) often performed, as well as Michael Harrison who would do magic tricks.

Seven years after my Installation, in 2003, I received a phone call. On the other end of the phone was the aforementioned RW Bro. J Trevor Broadley offering me a Provincial role – not a past role, an acting role…… He offered me the office of Provincial Registrar. This was totally unheard of as a first Provincial Honour. At the time I had bought a property in Spain and didn’t feel that I could commit the time required to fulfil the role with the commitment I felt was required, so I declined. His response to this was that he didn’t care, and was determined for me to take the role and wouldn’t take no for an answer, and just said “do as much as you can, and give it a go”. I remember thinking at the time, why has he given this role to a lowly dentist from Kippax? This sort of position used to go to Barristers, Senior Civil Servants and the like – my predecessor was a CBE and QFSM (The Queen’s Fire Service Medal – for gallantry).

I was Provincial Registrar for one year. It was, and still is, a very prestigious job, and was a great honour for The Lodge of Dawn. It was my role to collate new members, installations, deaths etc and then provide a report at the Provincial AGM. For a further four years, I was also the PGM’s representative at visits to lodges across the Province. I visited approximately 20 lodges during my time in the role, some of them in weird and wonderful corners of the territory – I didn’t have SatNav at the time and got lost a few times finding little villages off the M62. I do remember visiting some very small lodges, with virtually no brethren, just Officers, with Masters even reading ritual. It did make me realise how lucky we are in The Lodge of Dawn, both in terms of ritual but the fact that, in contrast, we had a waiting list for members. After five years I became Past Provincial Registrar, and am now Past Provincial Junior Warden.

Over my time, I’ve always made the effort to join other parts of Masonry. I joined The Royal Arch – and would encourage all Masons to do so – in order to meet other people. The same motivation to meet new people and make a wider circle of friends in different areas encouraged me to do the same when I joined Mark Masonry. You have to be in Craft to become a Mark Mason, and it has its own Grand Master, its own Head Office at St James’ in London, and for those who are conscious of time spent in Freemasonry, there are only 6 meetings per year.

Charity is always at the heart of Freemasonry and there are two stories that stand out for me. As a new brother in Freemasonry I was approached by the then charity steward for my donation. I won’t mention names but he would advise me that most brethren normally gave a tenner, which of course I duly contributed. It wasn’t until much later that I managed to get a sneaky peak at his ‘ledger’ to see that everyone else donated a fiver!

My first ever 10k run was when I was 50 years old, which was a Blackpool Fun Run. In total I raised around £7,500 which went to a number of charities including LJWB and Masonic charities. I have since then done a series of 10k runs and raised monies for both Craft and Mark charities and only stopped running when I wasn’t well. Charitable giving is very important throughout Masonry and I would encourage all brethren to continue to dig deep and contribute regularly, particularly at this very difficult time.

I have really relished my time in Freemasonry, had some really lovely times and continue to do so, and have enjoyed it to the full. Below you will see the photograph of myself, with the whole lodge in 1996/1997, as well as one of myself on my Installation flanked by the late W Bro. Maurice Cutler PAGDC (Preceptor) and the late W Bro. Maurice Goodman PPJGW (Deputy Preceptor).