The Russian Connection

Whilst browsing through the lodge archive pages I came across an interesting lodge minute which stated that on the 1st of December 1941 at the annual general meeting there were only 14 brethren present and each was elected to take up office for the ensuing year.

I presume the reason for the low attendance at such an important meeting in the lodge calendar was that our country was at war and the general public were suffering severe hardship.

It’s in times like these when our honourable organisation is needed most and there is no better an example than a minute from that same meeting in 1941 which stated that our lodge ,Caldercruix St John 1314 agreed to send a donation of £3.3d to the Red Cross appeal for Russia.

I being a young chap and not around back then I was intrigued to find out more about this appeal. So after some research I discovered that in 1941 an appeal was made by Mrs Clementine Churchill the wife of the British Prime Minister and Great War Leader Winston Churchill to send humanitarian aid to Russia who had suffered terribly during the advancement of Germany into Russia

The appeal was made Nationwide with posters placed in train stations and the newspapers of the day as well as radio broadcasts too.

Around £8 million was raised during the course of the war which is incredible considering the suffering and losses which must have affected just about every family household in Britain.

Its pleasing to note that even in that horrific time of world crisis our Lodge saw fit to help others less fortunate than ourselves. We had it and we most certainly gave it.


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