The Last & Greatest Trial in Blackpool.

Blackpool is famous for many things. The Tower, The Winter Gardens, The Pleasure Beach, The Illuminations, kiss me quick hats and of course Blackpool Rock

From Cannon and Ball to Little and Large the holidaymakers of Blackpool have over many decades been thoroughly entertained each and every year with the best of British music hall acts who visit the English North West holiday destination.

However on Friday the 25th of September 1987 a select group of men from the town of Blackpool had the pleasure of witnessing something they had never seen the likes of before.

On this day in history our Lodge, Caldercruix St John 1314 formed a delegation and for the first time ever and the only time ever left the country and travelled to England to confer an exemplification of the Master Mason degree in our own unique Cruix manner.

Our lodge was invited to the Province of West Lancashire by Bro. Allan Forrest J.W. of Lodge Benevolence No 6340 English Constitution who was a regular attender at our meetings and was the brother in law of PM Bro Norrie Muirhead.

The degree team & Office Bearers who were welcomed into Lodge Benevolence 6340 that night consisted of John Brown R.W.M., Ian Isaac P.M., Eddie Nelson S.W., Peter Greenan P.M. Sandy Stewart P.M. John Laird P.M. Norrie Muirhead P.M. John Russell Chaplain & David Davies Senior Steward.

Another brother who played an important and active role that night was Bro Jeff Spence who was volunteered to act as candidate.

 It was said at the time that Bro Jeff was still feeling the effects of that famous night in a Northern English town for several weeks afterwards.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

In The Beginning

Image
The History of Lodge Caldercruix St John doesn’t begin in1923 [The year of our foundation] as you would expect, but the year previous in 1922.  An old retired Master Mason from the village of Caldercruix became concerned for the welfare of his next door neighbour whom he believed to be a member of the craft.  It was very apparent to him that his neighbour and family had unfortunately fell on hard times, were in desperate financial difficulty and were in urgent need of relief and support.  As a means of offering his Neighbour financial assistance this old Master Mason arranged for a support fund to be raised by setting up a petition in the village enquiring if any Masonic brethren in the village were in a position to offer financial support for his distressed neighbour.  When Bro. T P. McCafferty saw the list of names he was surprised at the number of Masons in the village. He called a Meeting of these Brethren in the Craig Institute, Caldercruix, & put forward th...
Read more

1314 man meets the Queen.

Image
On the 2nd of March 1954. It was intimated that Bro. A. E. McVey had now become the Mayor of Barnsley, and the Secretary sent a message of congratulations on behalf of the Lodge. I therefore did some research and much to my astonishment I stumbled across this wonderful photo of Bro A. E . McVey and Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth II. Bro A E McVey welcomed the Queen to his town at the town's railway station and then he and his wife escorted the new monarch on a tour of the town and the Yorkshire coalfields. I also found an oil painting of Bro McVey and his wife which hangs in the Cannon Hall Museum in Barnsley. Also pictured is a scanned article giving a full account of the day that The Queen visited Barnsley and was the very special guest of Bro McVey.  
Read more

Wet or Dry?

Image
On the 7 th  of December 1926 a debate took place among the brethren of Caldercruix St John 1314 on whether the installation ceremony should be a wet or dry occassion, and Im not talking about the weather! as up until then the installation ceremony of Lodge office bearers had always been an alcohol free event. In the end the brethren decided that for the first time ever the installation ceremony would be a wet affair. It was decided that the tickets for the installation would be set at 2/6d. This brought to mind a funny story I heard from my good friend and brother , Bro Larry Sloan who told me that at the installation ceremony of Bro Eddie Nelson in 1988 everything went well and then at the after dinner speeches PM Bro Norrie Muirhead declared that for the first time ever in the history of Caldercruix St John 1314 they had in the person of RWM Bro Eddie Nelson , their first ever tee-total RWM. He then said that in the coming year ahead that the brethren of the lodge hoped to cure ...
Read more