Page 5 - July 2020

FROM THE MASTER
The City is also keen to keep in touch and to know how each Livery Company is getting on. Almost all of our members have now been contacted. Unfortunately, a few have had COVID-19, some worse than others.
Life as we all knew it is certainly different, the gym is shut but the
Quiz which is due, and will also be made available to other Livery Companies. From the Easter quiz organised by the Tobacco Pipe Smokers and Blenders I won a bottle of English sparkling wine, just in time for the VE Day celebrations. The quiz sought the most appropriate (humorous yet printable) collective nouns for a number of City characters, such as
via webinar, and my youngest nephew’s wedding has sadly been postponed from April to September. Some of the biggest events in the calendar were cancelled, one of the first was the United Guilds Service at St Paul’s along with the Lord Mayor’s Masters’ Mansion House Banquet the previous evening, a number of other Livery Company dinners and lectures, also Beating the Retreat and the Buckingham Palace Garden Party.
The Ironbridge weekend scheduled for the first weekend in June also looked vulnerable because of the floods earlier in the year. Jailed and Bailed at the Tower this year was scheduled after Common Hall 2020, one for the Upper Warden, although I am not sure now of the timing for 2021. A few of the other Livery Company lectures are now reappearing on Zoom.
As life now settles down – Easter has come and gone, church services are from podcasts and the 75th Anniversary of VE day was celebrated very differently,
we are at war but cannot see the enemy! The Red Arrows flew over Central London, I heard them and saw them in a blink of an eye – not as good as the photo.
I also attended the online Mayor Making for the new Lord Mayor of Westminster, although the Lord Mayor of London is now to stay on for a second year. The City Freedom Ceremony for Captain Sir Tom Moore online was interesting, a long time since mine in 2003.
I hope that you are all keeping well and that gradually everything will eventually return to the new normal.
Personal Trainer who I have had for many years now appears on Zoom for an hour’s hard work. Wine tasting is another activity as well as coffee mornings, various meetings, including the Directors of our block of flats, even though we all live in the same building. I await the results of our Great Fire
Beadles, Sheriffs and Liverymen. The winning entries included a Purse of Treasurers, a Tottering of Masters and a Brace of Sheriffs. My prize came for a Chain Gang of Lord Mayors.
On a more sombre note I have already attended two Funerals
Photo by kind permission of the Belgravia Society
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