At the Installation Meeting of St John’s Lodge No 3972 on Monday 21 October 2013 its Group Officer, WBro Bob Allison had a pleasant duty to perform when he presented a certificate to Bro Colin Elvy to mark his 60 years of unbroken membership of Freemasonry.
WBro Colin, now 83 years old, was born into a military family in Alderney in the Channel Islands. At 18 years old he joined the Grenadier Guards Feb 1949 .
In 1951, after completing his military service, he joined the Royal Household as footman to King George VI and Queen Elizabeth and lived in a grace and favour flat at Windsor Castle. He served the Royal Family variously at Sandringham, Holyrood, Balmoral, Windsor and on the Royal Yacht Brittania. His duties included attending the state funeral of King George VI in 1952 and the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II in 1953.
During this service he was presented with service medals from King Faisal of Iraq, the King of Sweden, and Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia.
He left the Royal Household in 1957 and became a Security Officer to British Timken where he served for 25 years.
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(l to r) Bro Colin Elvy, WBros Ken Stevenson (Installing Master), Jim Brogan (newly installed WM), Jim Boughton (APGM) & Bob Allison |
On 7 September 1953 he was initiated into his father’s Lodge - Shorncliffe Lodge No 4330, meeting at Shorncliffe Barracks in Folkestone, East Kent. He joined St John’s Lodge on in1967 and has missed only ten meetings since then.