Craft News
- Written by: John Fergusson
On Sunday 11 December, Peterborough Cathedral was again the venue for the Province’s Annual Festival of Lessons & Carols. Peterborough Cathedral was filled by members, their friends and families from across the Province. The Mayor of Peterborough, Cllr David Sanders, was amongst the civic dignitaries in attendance which included the Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Cambridgeshire, Richard Barnwell as well as the Deputy Lord Lieutenant for Northamptonshire, Simon Leatham.
The Acting Dean of Peterborough, Canon Jonathan Baker, led the service itself, and the lessons were read by our Provincial Grand Master, RW Bro Max Bayes as well as the Heads of Orders from within the Province including the Grand Superintendent, E Comp Wayne Williams and the Provincial Grand Master for the Mark Degree, RW Bro George Bonham.
The choir of Peterborough Cathedral was absolutely first class throughout the service. Following the service, there were the usual mince pies and glasses of wine to enjoy which helped start the Christmas feeling for those who were in attendance.
From left to right, Cllr David Sanders, Mayor of Peterborugh, Richard Barnwell, Deputy Lord Lieutenant of
Cambridgeshire, RW Bro Max Bayes, Provincial Grand Master, Mrs Barbara Bayes,
W Bro Brian Binley, Alderman of County of Northamptonshire & W Bro David Burton, Assistant Provincial Grand Master
Being a time for giving, and in the true spirit of Christmas, Delapre Lodge No.1911 recently contributed fourteen boxes to Operation Christmas Child, a charitable project run by Samaritan's Purse, a Christian charity.
Since 1990, more than 124-million boys and girls from over 150 countries have benefited from a shoebox of Christmas gifts donated through this project. Churches of several denominations and many schools have been involved from across the world.
Many of the recipients are children experiencing poverty and deprivation, either because they’re refugees, or because they’re living in war-zones, famine hotspots or other areas of need.
Taking this into account, it’s not surprising that Operation Christmas Child recommends that gift-boxes contain school supplies and basic toiletries in addition to toys. There are no strings attached to the gifts and, quite appropriately for Freemasons, the inclusion of anything of a religious or political nature is explicitly banned.
Delapre Lodge's initial contribution of £230 was proposed by WBro Mike Walsh and funded ten gift-boxes. He and Bro Lukasz Kusiak, also of Delapre Lodge, bought the gift-items, decorated the boxes and packed them.
A combination of canny buying together with further generosity by Delapre Lodge members/visitors took the final tally of boxes to fourteen.
Northampton as a whole contributes about two-thousand boxes to Operation Christmas Child - the above picture shows some of those boxes at the collection point in Brixworth
- Written by: Michael Genner
Bro Frank Bewley of Trinity Lodge 9165 was born on May 25th 1931, now aged 85 and settled in Kettering with his wife Sylvia. VWBro Trevor Boswell DPGM recently presented Bro Frank with his 50 years in Freemasonry Certificate.
Frank was initiated into Freemasonry at Scarborough Temperance Lodge under the UGL of Queensland Australia. Upon moving to New South Wales he became a member of the Sydney St. George Lodge, becoming Senior Warden before returning to the UK. He was a joining member of the Bullbrook Lodge, subsequently joining Brookmans Park Lodge in Cheshunt and Trinity Lodge in Kettering.
Frank served in the Fleet Air Arm as a Petty Officer and saw service in the Korean War on board HMS Glory with 821 Squadron in 1948 until medically discharged in 1961. Last year Frank was delighted to attend a Garden Party at Buckingham Palace as a war veteran.
From 1961 to 1964 he worked as an aircraft engineer with Handley Page at RAF Honington and in January 1964 he emigrated to Australia and worked as an aircraft engineer with Trans Australia airline in Brisbane and from 1967 until 1977 he was with Hawker de Havilland in New South Wales.
On returning to the UK in 1977 he joined British Aerospace as Head of Quality Engineering and subsequently Quality Audit Manager until retiring in 1993.
All Frank and Sylvia's children reside in Queensland and Sydney, Australia while in the UK Frank and Sylvia are co-ordinators for Neighbourhood Watch at their home in Kettering.
- Written by: Michael Genner
On Tuesday November 22nd, most of the Provincial Team turned out at Sheaf Close to support our Provincial Grand Master conduct the ceremony of rededicating the banner of Coritani Lodge 8079 as part of their 50th anniversary celebrations. Over 110 brethren attended.
Coritani Lodge was consecrated on May 3rd 1966 and 6 years before they designed and sourced a banner that was formally dedicated at the Wheatsheaf Hotel Daventry, on October 26th 1972, by RWBro Richard Palmer the PGM at that time.
The Image on the banner portrays Boudicca in her chariot whilst the Motto, ‘KERENSA BRODER’ translates as ‘Brotherly Love’
Coritani’s mother lodge, Beneventa 2380 was named after the early Roman settlement of Bannaventa, situated at the North end of Borough Hill on the outskirts of Daventry, which ultimately became the present day village of Norton. In his dedication address, the Provincial Grand Chaplain, WBro Rev’d John Simmons, explained the design of Coritani’s banner which reflects the thought processes followed when the name ‘Coritani’ was chosen.
The Festive Board was well attended
Additional Historic Information
The ‘territory’ of the Celtic tribe of ICENI, one of the 35 British tribes known to have existed in the Iron Age period, stretched along the east coast from the town of Stour in Essex to the Humber in Yorkshire. The Iceni tribe was divided into two clans, the northern called ICENI CORITANI (Corieltauvi) and the southern ICENI CENOMANNI, divided more or less by the river NEN.
Of the former tribe, BANNAVENTA was the frontier city, covering it’s territories to the west, bordering on the DOBUNI of Oxfordshire and the CAENGI, foresters of Warwickshire.
Celtic people were deeply religious, worshipping many gods – the name Coritani actually meant ‘worshippers of the ‘effective’ deity’ – and to express their devotion to their gods, the Celts made regular offerings by placing items in rivers, deep pools and sacred groves and during times of great hardship they often deposited large numbers of precious objects, such as gold torcs (necklaces) and large earthenware vessels filled with coins, in deep pits in the ground. The Iceni had been minting coins from about 50 BCE, until the Roman conquest in 43 AD. These were usually silver coins with a patterned face on one side (obverse), with a horse on the reverse.
The ‘Celts’ were a warlike race of people who dominated Europe for 500 years. From 800 BCE Celtic civilization spread rapidly through mainland Europe, reaching the British Isles in around 500 BCE. By 400 BCE the Celts had become the most powerful people in Europe – an invading Celtic force of Senones led by Brennus very nearly succeeding in conquering Rome and after the Romans surrendered, the Celtic chieftains demanded a hefty ransom before agreeing to leave. Following this humiliating and embarrassing defeat, Rome’s hierarchy wanted revenge, realizing that the Celts now posed a constant threat to their civilization they immediately launched a military offensive, whose long term sole objective was to crush and subjugate the Celts.
In AD 43 the Roman emperor Claudius invaded Britain and while most of the British tribes in southern England, surrendered to the Romans without a fight, Caratacus, the Catuvellauni king, continued to fight and in 47 AD the Iceni rose in revolt after the Romans tried to enforce a law forbidding the carrying of weapons. The revolt was put down and Prasagustas established as a client king.
Prasutagas decided that it would be prudent to make his will assigning half of his personal property to the Roman emperor but when he died in 61 AD the Roman officials decided to interpret his will as a submission to the Roman state and moved to appropriate all of the Iceni lands and disarm the tribe.
Not surprisingly, Prasutagas's widow, Boudicca (or Boadicea as she was sometimes known) protested. The Romans had her publicly flogged and her two daughters were raped. In 61 AD Boudicca raised the Iceni and the neighbouring Trinivantes tribe in revolt against Roman rule and it was only with some difficulty that the Romans managed to quell the Iceni uprising, with Boudicca choosing to take her own life rather than fall into the hands of her enemies. The Romans established a new capital in the Iceni lands at Caistor, near Norwich and no record of the Iceni exists after this point, though legends suggest that large numbers fled west into Wales and eventually settled in Ireland.