Page 65 - Amo Amass A-muse is some of the fruit of a lifetimes love of Freemasonry - the Lodge of Nine Muses No. 235

Amo Amass A-Muse - Lodge of the Nine Muses 65

Then there was Brother Reid, my senior Warden during my first Mastership. He
was a poet and composer and used to play to us after dinner. He composed a special
Ode to the Muses, but alas it has been lost, but we still possess a few lines of poetry
which he sent to us on his death bed.
Now, Dickie Thornton’s Uncle was the Provincial Grand Master of Sussex, a terror
of a man. He came to Dickie’s Initiation at the Grosvenor Hotel and found fault with
much that we did. Dickie was suddenly posted to India and we could not summon
a special meeting to raise him, so Colonel Thornton arranged for him to be raised
at Chichester, where his family lived, in the oldest Sussex Lodge and I was invited as
a guest. Colonel Thornton arrived in procession with his Provincial Grand Officers,
accepted the Gavel, put his Provincial Grand Officer into the Wardens chairs and
proceeded to raise Dickie himself. Half way through, without warning, he ordered
me to continue as representative of the Nine Muses! He and his Officers then retired
and the Master of the Lodge resumed his Chair.
I must mention Mossey Myers, a senior Grand Officer who seldom attended until
just before the last war. When my father died, he became our Treasurer and was a tower
of strength. He arranged for us to meet during the war at Grosvenor House, where he
had a flat. We met at Mid-day. His generosity with Magnums, Tregnoms, Jeroboams, if
not bigger, of all kinds of superlative wines, was something to be remembered; so also
were his tales about his own race which kept us in fits of laughter.
In the move from Grosvenor House we lost our ancient firing glasses. A box which
was supposed to have contained them was full of quite nice claret glasses. Now my
Brother, after the war, was on the Control Commission in Germany and purchased
a German Masonic glass engraved ‘from Bruder so and so to Bruder someone else.’ I
showed it to the Lodge and it was agreed to let us go ahead and use this as a model to
replace that which was lost. I designed the engravings, none are the same, whilst my
Brother arranged with Schott and Genossen, the finest glass makers in Germany, to
make and engrave them. We were going to present them all memory of our Father
but others wished to come in so we added to the original number; the presenter to
decide the name of the deceased member to be engraved. It was a bit of a wangle how
they were paid for because currency exchange was forbidden, and to avoid customs
they were sent in pairs to individual members as samples.