The Master
This is the third and final newsletter to be published during my Mastership. How time flies!
The Company has been active on all fronts since the April newsletter was published.
Professor Phillip Capper delivered the Master’s Lecture this year – he lived up to expectations by being interesting, provocative and entertaining. There were many more in the audience than in recent years. It was particularly pleasing to see so many students present. My thanks go to Mayer Brown for allowing us to use their new facilities and for sponsoring the event.
On the social front we had an enjoyable Court Lunch at the Armourers’ Hall at the beginning of April, when Sir John Stuttard was our principal guest. He gave a most informative talk about life behind the scenes at Mansion House during his time as Lord Mayor. What an exhausting, but valuable, job the Lord Mayor undertakes! It was only some weeks later that he told me that he had suffered a serious heart attack before he took office - so he is a brave man too.
We broke new ground with a family day at Chatham on the Sunday after Easter. Assistant Jonathan Wyatt has written a piece on this elsewhere in this newsletter. Jenny and I had carried out an initial recce last June with Assistant Karl Davies and found the place then to be of great interest. Even though we saw a lot more during our second visit on 19 April we decided to renew our tickets then at a heavily discounted price with a view to returning later in the year.
The Italian Evening went well, too, although there was a near disaster when one of the singers said on arrival that she would only be able to perform for a couple of minutes because the restaurant did not have a piano or keyboard – although neither instrument had been requested beforehand! After my mediation skills had been tested to the utmost we ended up having a selection of unaccompanied songs for twenty minutes or so, with the other guests in the restaurant clearly enjoying the unexpected musical interlude as much as we did.
The visit to the Tower of London on Waterloo Day was fully subscribed. We had a very entertaining and informative tour by one of the Yeoman Warders, Alan Fiddes (who is also the Beadle of the Weavers Company),before having supper at the Yeoman Warders’ Club and witnessing the Ceremony of the Keys at 10pm. The rendition then of The Last Post still rings in my ears.
Although we are in the midst of difficult times I have been very pleased to see our social events so well supported – numbers have been up on previous years. It has been particularly encouraging to see a number of our less regular attendees come along this year. I took great pleasure at the Italian Evening in introducing the Clerk (whom I had previously thought knew everything about, and every one in, the Company) to one of our longest-standing members whom she had not previously met!
We flourish on the charitable side too. Jenny’s decision to run around the City on 25 May for the Charitable Trust clearly caught the imagination of many members, and both she and I are most grateful for the many donations which were received. A short report on her exploits is to be found elsewhere.
I am also grateful to the Senior Warden for arranging the second Charity Concert which took place at St Mary le Bow at the beginning of June. We had some stirring piano playing from Liveryman Michael Gifkins and Anna Le Hair and some singing of some very difficult Schumann songs by David Bellinger, whom we supported for a second year in his studies at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. I was able to hear them again when I attended David’s final recital (as part of his B Mus exams) ten days later.
We have contributed more to outward charitable giving this year than in the recent past by augmenting the amount of the annual cheque to the Lord Mayor’s Appeal which was handed over at the Banquet – and by contributing in kind to the Lord Mayor’s Financial Literacy Campaign under the watchful eye of the Junior Warden. As you will see elsewhere in this newsletter Liveryman Hew Dundas was the first to venture into an East London school in May to assist in teaching children about business. Others in the Company (including me) are following his lead, but some further volunteers would not go amiss. If you are interested, please contact the Junior Warden, Kay Linnell.
I would also draw your attention to the article elsewhere in this newsletter on our new and burgeoning relationship with H M S Mersey. It has been traditional for Livery Companies to form links with the Armed Forces and we are indeed fortunate to have secured one with H M S Mersey, not only because it has been so well received by the ship’s company but also because there are now relatively few new links which can be formed, due to downsizing. I hope very much that it will be possible for members to visit the ship when she is in Docklands in September.
You will receive this newsletter when I am two thirds or so through my term of office. It is premature to look back on my Mastership but, at the start of my year, I aimed to raise the profile of the Company and to encourage participation of a wider range of members in its activities. My aims have been largely realised. If I have any regret it is the relative lack of new applications for membership that we have received: we depend on the recruitment of new blood if we are to fulfil our educational, charitable and civic obligations (and enjoy even more our social ones). Please try and encourage your friends and business colleagues to join us if you think they might be interested in doing so.
I have enjoyed my time as Master enormously and take this opportunity to thank you most sincerely for the support which you have given me, and the friendship which you have shown, during the last nine months.
John Rushton
Master