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The compromise - thread about wakes.

As I have banged on, family member died and by I’ve been left with all the organising.  Funeral is on thursday. 

Anyway, I’ve hired out a pub and garden for the wake and sorted out catering buffet, usual funeral nonsense.  

But, turns out that there’s going to be quite a lot more people than I had originally planned for.  My great uncle was a mason in craft, mark and royal arch as well as having provincial honours in all and a past grand rank.  It seems the masons have decided that they want to make this a big deal so we have people coming from London and Cardiff as well as Cornish provincial grand officers and their staff, along with members of all his past lodges.

There is no single venue I can get at such short notice, so my plan is to keep with the existing plan for family/close friends and then borrow a mate’s pub for the mason lot.  Presumably my brother and I will have to be dashing between the two in order to keep everyone happy.

As usual in his opinion of me, my brother thinks this is stupid.  However he has no better idea.

Reckon I’ll get away with it or will I put people’s noses out of joint?  I want to avoid the kind of thinking that this is some sort of A list/B list structure so will be explaining that plans had to change due to numbers.

There’s only one lodge building nearby that all the different lodges share and it’s tiny, most of the lodges around here really aren’t very big.  Not even big enough for the original numbers.

Presumably, as you are aware all these masons are coming, you are in contact with them? So presumably you have mentioned that you weren’t expecting them and haven’t catered for them? And presumably they have responded somehow, either by reducing their numbers, agreeing not to attend the wake, or suggesting something else? 

One just for family. If the Masons want to hold another one, they can organise it. And pay for it, they're wealthy enough. Just adjust the timings so you can go to both if you want.

Stix - sort of, I’m in contact with the almoner of the mark lodge who is relaying between the other almoners and yes, they know there’s nothing sorted but rather than just descend on an unsuspecting pub I thought something private would be better, hence the ‘plan B’ concept. 

Would be considered very bad form given my own past provincial honours.  I’m not going to pay for anything, I think just giving them a designated venue that won’t impede other people is enough, now that I’ve typed it all out.

The pub isn’t doing the food, I know a guy who owns a catering company and they’re going to do a buffet.  The pub is also not large enough a venue for that many people (and there’s bound to be a few extras I don’t know about).  Anyway, mind is made up, second pub for the masons, will let everyone know they can freely travel between the two if they wish to mingle.  No booze for me it seems!

Craft - standard freemasonry.  

Mark - side lodge with different teachings about life.  My dad’s favourite so I made a point of refusing when various people tried to get me to join. :)

Royal Arch - senior side lodge, different teachings again and generally a better class of mason.  More expensive and more grandiose and invite only.  Have to be a master mason (and in Cornwall have to have provincial honours) to join.  By far my favourite.

So you're in the Masons. My great uncle Reg was pretty senior in that. They kept pestering me to join them, but not my thing.

As I said, hold the short family one early afternoon, then the Masons one late afternoon. Timing.

normal freemasonry is called craft.  Once you have learnt/completed that, you can do others. "Mark" is one.  "Royal Arch" is another.

It's like learning the trumpet, then doing a bit of trombone and sax

 

Chambers - it’s been mentioned in the past.  The masons and members aren’t secret, in fact we are encouraging people to stop the secret nonsense.

Rather than being seen as a secret society, we are trying to establish ourselves as a society, with secrets. 

Chambo - aside from a bit of life lessons (trying to make good men better) basic craft freemasonry is mainly a good way for blokes to have bloke time, a few pints and a nice dinner while having a laugh and donating a lot of money to charity.

"Royal Arch - senior side lodge, different teachings again and generally a better class of mason.  More expensive and more grandiose and invite only.  Have to be a master mason (and in Cornwall have to have provincial honours) to join.  By far my favourite."

Heh. U plonker.

It's a good way for blokes to feel grandiose.

I walked past the Grand Lodge the other day.  Masonry seems to involve dressing like a barristers clerk and holding a suitcase whilst drinking cider at 10am...

Wang - of course not! They make us take a vow and everything.  If you want to know what it’s all about you have to join yourself, become a master mason and if you think it’s still a load of old nonsense just leave then.

Even my brother wouldn’t tell me anything, so it was a right shock when they brought out the goat.

Ive said too much.

The vicar and one of the churchwardens at our old church were both Masons.  They were forever trying to get me to join.  I went once, and it seemed to be a bunch of middle aged tradesmen trying to get away from women and invent ways to make themselves seem more important.  I politely declined membership.  On more than one occasion. 

 

At the churchwarden's funeral one of his Mason buddies gave a eulogy which was supposed to be about Phil, but ended up being a spiel about how great the Masons is and how much Phil had done for them (largely setting up a salmon fishing syndicate on a two mile stretch of the Wye so they could all spend even less time with their families).  We just sat there thinking "what an utter aunt".  The Area Dean (who hated Masons, even though he was a close friend of the warden) looked like he was about to go Librarian poo.

I’m surprised at people saying they’ve been invited and declined on this thread.  Not that I doubt your word at all, but one of the main tenets is that we aren’t supposed to invite anyone to join.  Encourage to apply is fair enough, but invite? Should be absolutely verboten.

It's not an invitation as such though, is it?  It's more insidious than that.  More talking constantly about it when you're with someone, telling them how great it is and how you'd be a valued addition.  Then talking about flash events you're going to which are solely for Masons.  But the unspoken invitation is clear - please join us.  In fact, one of Phil's mates came up to me in the pub afterwards and said "Oh, so YOU'RE [Badman]?  Phil was forever trying to get you to join, but he said you just weren't interested.  He was very disappointed".

Ahh ok, got it.  I’ve never indulged in that, people know that I’m involved and I’ve had a few people ask me about it and had a couple actually ask me if they could join.

But I never dropped hints or encouraged it tbh, but I guess that’s the difference between the very old, established and relatively wealthy lodges vs the newer ones which are scrabbling about for members.

Oh no, this was the main lodge in Bristol, which is extremely old and wealthy.  They just like to "acquire" people they think could be of use.  But they're tradesmen, coppers and so on.  I think Bristol masons suffer from the fact that professionals aspire to join the Guild of Merchant Venturers. 

I did actually go along to a Masons lodge meeting once just to form my own view.

Not one of them could probably lay a row of bricks. I am a structural engineer.

Nothing to do with building anything that lot.

So I left.

There is no ‘main lodge’ in Bristol or any other city, save for Grand Lodge in London.  There are a fair few lodges across all cities which are technically all equal, albeit in practical terms age of lodge charter tends to denote wealth, I used to go to one in Keynsham.

The only bragging rights about lodges really are the numbers.  Most lodges these days have four figures in their charter number.  My mother lodge is only double digits which makes people pause a little when I give greetings as it denotes it was one of the very earliest lodges and is considered more prestigious as a result.

Oh that’s just Freemasons hall, not a specific lodge (other than province of Bristol I guess). About 40 or so craft lodges alone meet there, not to mention mark, royal arch, mariners, baldwyn etc.

"one of the main tenets is that we aren’t supposed to invite anyone to join. "

 

I have been invited to join by three different people. 

All of them were the sort of tedious chumps I would rather not spend my time with. Weird little men's club pretending to be a bit mysterious and special whilst supporting serious corruption and cover ups. 

 

 

 

Argh I am struggling with Chambo @ 12.38.

Half of me is thinking "heh, couldn't agree with you more" and the other half is thinking "peak Chambo".

Cognitive dissonance.

The few masons I've known well have always been the ones to give practical help when I've needed it most, without needing to be asked.

Not the "Let me know if there's anything I can do" type. The "I've brought five of my friends that you've never even met to help you clear out your departed relative's house" type.

I'm not a fan of secret societies but credit where credit is due.

I suspect they'd be mortified to think they were putting you to any trouble at this sad time.  Present the problem and they'll sort themselves, no doubt.

Wibs - if anyone does that again, tell them you’re mates with a past grand lodge officer who says invites are absolutely forbidden.  Heh.  If they’re trying to play the game of ‘I’m important in my lodge because I got loads of people to join’ then they’ll shit their pants.

Pleb - well thing is it isn’t a problem it was more a mental thing I needed to type out and work through in my mind before reaching the obvious conclusion.  As I held very high rank in the masons in the past, I’ve helped out a huge number of people, some of whom had nothing to do with the masons, and it’s just kind of expected that either I or my brother will sort this out.  

Especially given that the children and grandchildren of the gentleman in question won’t have anything to do with the funeral. 

As the oldest, it really should be my bro sorting this all but as he lives 8000 miles away he doesn’t exactly have the local connections that I do.

As an amusing aside.. gotcha  an anonymous email?  Will send you a pic of his err ‘business’ card  Santiago, Chile!

He repeatedly tells me it’s 8000 miles away, who am I to bother checking.

Teccers, I seem to recall you saying that you hadn’t seen Uncle for a long time, and then you only just saw him briefly before he popped his clogs.

So why are you organising the funeral when said deceased appears to have kids and grand kids...?

This strange malarkey, and your alleged Grand-wizardry, all seems like a cracking Tecco fantasy tbh.

You’re mixing things up a bit.  Im sure it isnt intentional because my outpourings are v much just brain drain at times.  Everything is so disorganised in my own head it must seem even worse from an outsider’s perspective.

Great Uncle’s children and grandchildren (save for one) refuse to attend - family argument. 

The way our family structure works is that the responsibility then falls on my father (dead) and then on my brother (de facto head of the family as the oldest male child of the oldest Male).  However he hasn’t been available due to his job being overseas based therefore it fell upon me.

All the ‘wizadry’ Stuff is a distraction really.  And if you want I can prove it to you, it’s not bollocks in this case, give me an anon email address and I’ll provide proof.

 

The way your family structure works seems to involve everything falling on the shoulders of Muggins

If it was not for the Masonic side, I would have left him for the Council to deal with 

My aunts.  Which is a whole other can of worms seeing as I had to threaten legal action against one of them recently in order for my mother to have sight of a copy of my grandmother’s Will. 

Mad you can imagine, that aunt will not be attending.  My family is such a mess lol.

I’m trying to not think about that yet.

Brother is back now chambo.  But he has no clue about what is or isn’t available in the area.

Stix: lol poor old wang innit, he publishes his anon email addy and knows plenty of folks so he can actually just forward on random shit I send without anyone being compromised but me (and I don’t really care). 

But I don't think the poor guy does.  I imagine him sitting there having dinner with his family, his phone pings and it's more shite from you.  Nobody cares about you justifying your stories m7.  Give Wang a break.

Sorry m7. Didn’t realised were virtue signalling for wango.  Why don’t you go out and get laid or something?  Jesus.  Chill out dude.

The chances of wang’s phone pinging when I email him are probably up there with my chance of AOC wanting to enter into a closed polyamorous relationship with me and hazel.

i wouldn’t stress it.

TBF to tecco, his emails are less embarassing than when, on my stag do in B-righton, I had my phone and wallet confiscated (mainly because I was dressed in hotpants so tight the pockets were rendered irrelevant) and, during the curry, holder of the phone (my m7 dave) received a ping.

"just check it isnt work" I said

"err, wang" said dave "this is a video of someone doing a shyt sent by a contact called The Naked Avenger"...

 

 

 

Long time ago but I think it was denim hotpants, a crop top with bra loaded with tangerines, a long black wig that was made from something cheaper and more flammable than polyester and jackie onnassis glasses.  may have been fishnets and boots too but alas my memory fails me.

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