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DGM's Messages

2009

2010

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2010 January February March April May June July August September October November December

RW DGM' s MESSAGE FOR FEBRUARY 2010

THE LOSS OF A FRIEND AND BROTHER

A few weeks ago I lost a much-loved friend and brother to Cancer, an illness stoically borne over a couple of years, and a passing, perhaps anticipated. Nevertheless, a loss such as this is not so easily accepted as it marked for me, the end of a close relationship over the span of our lives from our teens to more than three score years and ten – 55 years to be exact.

We were born about the same year, 8000 miles apart of two nationalities, and met by chance at University which launched a friendship which lasted these almost six decades.

In College, one day, casually, Azariah Pinney, Etonian and squire as he appeared to me, asked me to go home with him to Dorset for the winter vacation. Perhaps this was his way of saying thank you for a bit of help I gave him to clear his first qualifying exam at the end of the summer term, despite the sad fact that I was not entirely successful in helping him to pass. Consequently he left Oxford after a year but he introduced me to his parents, sisters and an infant brother, who took me in as a member of the family, at whose home I spent almost all my college vacations thereafter. This introduction, incidentally, also gained me an entry into English social life in the country, a rare experience for a middle-class Indian of that or any time, and an useful exposure to the ways of the then World.

Aza was a versatile character – during his life he farmed sheep and wheat, drove a flock of sheep from Scotland to Exmoor which was filmed by the BBC, made films for the European Union, sold pet food and in between all these diversions, stood for parliament three times, unsuccessfully. Through all these ‘false starts’ he never for a moment lost his charm and equable nature.

Aza arrived in our fraternity rather late in life, and attained the Eastern Chair only when he was over sixty years of age. Despite ill-health he had lost a kidney by then, he traveled all the way to Madras (Chennai) in 2001 to attend my investiture as District Grand Master. His pride in my achieving this office was totally unalloyed, and I felt an equal pride in having him as my friend and brother. To me, he epitomized freemasonry, which in the last years of his life gave him enormous mental satisfaction and peace.

Aza was called to the Grand Lodge above around the middle of last month, and the Peterwell Lodge No.4713 in Lampeter (Wales) lost a fine Mason and Past Master, and I, a great friend, brother and a solid representative of both English Masonry and its gentry. Many in this Masonic District will remember having met him and will miss his company particularly Brethren from Kerala.

May his soul rest in peace !