THE title of this column has been a bit of a bind at times. I have to tell people what it's called when I contact them in the first instance, and as soon as I do it conjures up images in their heads. Most people so far have replied with something along the lines of, 'Well, we're really not that secret you know', and I in turn have to explain how being secret is no prerequisite to appearing in Secret Society; it's just a name.
I AM indebted to Dave Stubbings of Exeter's Royal Antediluvian Order of Buffaloes for helping Nostalgia shed some light on a recent mystery picture highlighted in these columns. It showed members of the Exeter RAOB parading through Sidwell Street in 1957. Dave said: "The photograph was taken of the march to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the opening of the Ye Rose of Devon Lodge No. 7899 on September 10, 1947 in the Honiton Inn, Paris Street, Exeter. "We recognise Brothers Arthur Wilson, a founder member, Ernie Middlewick, Cyril Clyburn and Alf Cobley, all members on the Roll of Honour." The order is more commonly known as the RAOB or "Buffs" and the long word in the title means "Before the Flood". The Buffs are a worldwide fraternal organisation and mainly devoted to charitable work...
LOOKING out across the expanse of water at the twinkling lights joining the three towns of Torbay in a cheerful, multi-coloured arc is a small, bobbing addition to their number. From our own gently rocking outlook on one of the jetties poking out into Torquay harbour and over waves darkened by the onset of a cloudy summer evening, we can just make out the profile of a small boat.
THE Freemasons held their fraternal breath as midnight approached last Monday. After centuries of dwelling in history's shadows - being blamed for everything from assassinating JFK and establishing a New World Order to the Jack the Ripper murders and controlling the police force - the organisation waited anxiously for Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol, to appear in bookstores at the stroke of 12, dragging the secret society into the glare of a 21stcentury media feeding frenzy. Brown's most famous literary offering, TheDaVinci Code, threw harsh light on another secretive society - the Catholic Church's Opus Dei - causing serious PR problems for the organisation in real life.Would Brown's creation, symbologist Robert Langdon's latest adventure, follow suit, portraying the Masons as hi...
AFTER 28 years as a freemason, George Laws is backing a policy of openness in the movement - and now he has gone a step further by compiling a book on freemasonry. Mr Laws, who holds the rank of past provincial junior grand warden, retired last year from the voluntary position of company secretary of the Wallsend Masonic Hall Company. The hall is used by 14 freemasons' lodges, totalling around 550 members.
I WAS not surprised by your article on page 16 of the Evening Post on September 14, concerning the exclusion of Councillor June Stanton, of Sketty, from a meeting of the Abertawe Bro Morgannwg (ABM) University Health Board, I have in my possession a copy of the agenda for a meeting on May 6, which I attended as an observer. On this agenda, the dates of two further meetings are given, and I quote: "To consider a motion to exclude the press and the public in accordance with section 1(2 ) public bodies (admission to meetings act) 1960. I knew before attending the meeting that members of the public were not allowed to speak, and it makes one wonder what kind of secret society has been created here. I am intelligent enough to realise that there must be reasons to exclude the public from par...
I CAN distinctly remember the first time the words 'Natural History' entered my lexicon. I was eight, my brother 10, and my grandparents still young enough then to plan a trip from the Home Front heartland of Kent to the centre of London, a magical place filled with sights and sounds so very different to those we encountered at Gran's small bungalow in the country.
USED though we are to the risible contortions performed by British judges in recent privacy hearings, the latest gagging order is simply unfathomable. The High Court allows the media to reveal that one Helen Wood, the prostitute who had a threesome with Wayne Rooney, also consorted with 'a leading actor and/ or world famous celebrity who is married and is a father'. The problem is the Press is barred from saying who he is.
The notion of Formula One sponsors being publicity-shy may sound as likely as Michael Schumacher taking up flower arranging, or Ferrari painting their cars psychedelic purple. When the Ferrari-powered Sauber team went looking for sponsors last year, though, that is exactly what they found: companies who wanted to be involved in the sport without the world at large knowing about it.
IN A WAY, I don't want you to read this review. Because once you have, you'll know about The Goring Hotel, and a little bit of the lovely, intimate secrecy about the place will be gone. Perhaps secrecy is the wrong word; discretion might be better, a proper indication of how wonderfully understated it is. Start with the location. I've worked about a mile away from it for more than six years, and eaten a great many professional political lunches in Westminster and Victoria in that time. So I thought I knew the patch fairly well. But in all my lunching with ministers, diplomats and other ne'er-do-wells, I'd never come across The Goring and its first-class restaurant.
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