THREE KINGS 06

PGM50th

“A Certificate not Presented”

Receiving a 50-year certificate and the congratulations and ceremony that surrounds such an occasion is pretty special – marking as it does a ‘lifetime’ of service to Freemasonry. It’s something that many of us aspire to but was, perhaps, the last thing on our mind as each of us went through our initiation.

A particularly notable 50th Anniversary was marked at Kings Heath on Wednesday 17th November. And the peculiar thing is, that despite a large and celebratory gathering of many of Freemasonry’s finest, the Brother enjoying the moment did not actually receive a certificate from the Provincial Grand Master. That’s because the would-be recipient was none other than the RW Bro Robert (Bob) Vaughan PGM himself!

“It was a pretty extraordinary day,” Bob commented afterwards. “The plan was that RWBro Geoffrey Dearing, President of the Board of General Purposes, would lead the event and we had a room full of around 130 people including a few present and past PGMs. It was a truly remarkable gathering.

“Stephen Wyer, Deputy PGM was in the Chair while Pete Broughton was acting as Director of Ceremonies. All of a sudden Pete said he had to retire from the Lodge for a few minutes and asked to be excused - I thought there was perhaps some family issue he needed to attend to. Then he returned and asked PGMs to retire and it sunk in that ‘something’s up!’.