April
Incredibly April 5th marked the start of the second half of my year as Master – tempus indeed fugit!
After the Easter break my first event was the Lord Mayor’s Big Curry Lunch at the Guildhall and it was great to see a large number of our Liverymen supporting this excellent event which for the first time benefitted all three services and not just ABF The Soldier’s Charity. In all the event raised an impressive £190,000 and if you have not yet sampled the delight of garam massala in the Great Hall I strongly encourage you to attend next year’s event scheduled for 4th April 2019.
The Curry Lunch was followed by the Installation Dinner for the Framework Knitters at Goldsmith’s Hall where unusually I was a guest of the Mistress who is a Framework Knitter.
A range of Company administration and meetings followed but the month’s highlight was my visit to Brompton Barracks for the Royal Engineer’s Cadet Open Day at which bricklaying was one of the task stations for the first time. The cadets enjoyed a variety of tasks including arranging tractor wheels with heavy plant, a waterborne initiative test and operating bomb disposal robots although despite these delights many identified bricklaying as their favourite activity of the day – another pointer to the need to expose school students to crafts at an early age!
May
The Easter break made April a relatively quiet month but in May the Livery world springs back into life with a vengeance. Lunch with HM Judges and Sheriff Neil Redcliffe at the Old Bailey on the 8th heralded a run of six events in three days including the principal event of the Company year, our Annual Guest’s Dinner at Merchant Taylors’ Hall. I hope all who attended enjoyed the evening as much as Catherine and I did. The food, wine and principal speaker HH William Kennedy were all excellent and it is testament to our history and longevity that we dined in the same room in which our Liveryman Ben Jonson had designed and produced a Royal Pageant and Masque for King James I some 411 years before. Particular thanks must go to our Learned Clerk who as ever oversaw a superb and slick event notwithstanding a number of unusual requirements such as the Master and Mistress’s gifts and the viewing and procession of our magnificent new table centrepiece. This is a truly fitting piece with which to commemorate the 450th Anniversary of the grant of our Royal Charter by Queen Elizabeth I in 1568 and I extend my thanks to the Upper Warden, Past Master Roger Westbrook and Silver Steward and Liveryman David Allen for all their hard work in the commissioning and delivery of the centrepiece.
We approached the Annual Guest’s Dinner with some trepidation as our room manager for the night confessed to having worked for the Learned Clerk when at the Dorchester - fortunately John had treated him kindly and trained him well as he presided over a near faultless service.
The week ended with the NFRC Awards and it was a great pleasure to see Master Craftsman Andy Rowlands receive the Heritage Roof of the Year Award – congratulations (again!) Andy.
The following week was no less hectic with the wonderful Sons and Friends of the Clergy service at St Paul’s Cathedral. The next day some 20 of us embarked on the Craft Committee visit to Ironbridge. This was a most excellent trip, and thanks are due to Liveryman David Williams for organising such an informative and entertaining programme and for securing excellent accommodation and catering. It was a particular pleasure to visit the Tile Museum and Craven Dunnill at Jackfield where we also participated in a tile designing and decorating competition. The tiles have been independently judged by Craven Dunnill and the results and photographs will appear in the Upper Wardens’ Newsletter.
From Ironbridge the Mistress and I attended the TTA Awards and Gala Dinner at Solihull which was an excellent but late, night to close another busy week.
After a few days at home there then followed 7 appointments in 3 days the highlights of which were another trip to Brompton barracks for a Reception and the Sounding The Retreat by the Band of the Ghurkas on 23rd May as well as the launch of the Exhibition of the Company’s History and Treasures at the Guildhall Library on the 24th May. We were honoured by the presence of the Lord Mayor who officially opened the Exhibition and who was still eulogising about this at Christ’s Hospital Speech Day on the 26th May. This was another excellent event in the impressive surroundings of the school and hopefully we will be able to announce our second presentee later this year to follow in the footsteps of Onyinye Udokporo. The students’ march past and salute to the Lord Mayor and the School Band were most impressive and were almost but not quite, up to the standard of the Ghurkas - I have to say that as they have Kukris and the students, to the best of my knowledge, don’t!
June highlights to look forward to include HM Garden Party at Buckingham Palace, the Mistress’s Ladies event at the V&A, the Livery weekend at Ironbridge, the Annual Masters and Clerks Luncheon at Armourers and Braziers Hall and the Master’s visit to Southwold. Another busy month in prospect!