The new 2012 Master - Mervyn Miller writes... 1

Master Miller

The Installation usually takes place around 10 September: this year it slipped back to the 18th so the first two events were a taster, literally. On 11/09 the Modern Companies Dinner held at Staple Inn, High Holborn was a useful way of meeting my peers. Two days later it was the Court Leet of the King’s Manor Jurors’ Dinner at Old Bailey, as the guest of David Cole-Adams, soon to become our Clerk Emeritus, and in early October Master of the Tylers and Bricklayers. I’m not sure that I understand the esoteric origin of this organisation, but this is true of so many City of London institutions. It was certainly an event which featured good conversation in unusual surroundings.

The real thing occurred on September 18, the Installation Court and Lunch held at Watermen’s Hall, a delightful 18th century building. I’ve witnessed the Court procedure many times, but it was unnerving to be at the centre, with the transition made elegantly by Michael Wilkey, and David Cole-Adams reading my declaration, and those of my Wardens – Jaki Howes, Geoffrey Purves and Peter Murray, before I replaced him (after twelve years’ outstanding service) with Ian Head. There was a public tribute to David, and presentation of his Clerk Emeritus ‘feathers’ at the lunch. Susan Wilkey passed the Consort’s badge to my stalwart friend Ann Yorke. I was supported by family and friends, as well as many familiar faces from the Company, with the Master Tin Plate Worker and Master Information Technology Company as Company guests. The principal Company guest was the architect Robert Adam, who spoke about the challenge of globalism in architecture and referred to our work together. 

On 20/09 the Livery Halls Charity Hall Walk brilliantly organised by the Company of Environmental Cleaners launched a band of begowned, chained and hatted men and women from Armourers’ Hall on a zigzag route through the byways of the City of London, to and from the extremities of Glaziers Hall, attached to the south abutment of London Bridge and HMS Wellington on the Embankment, with a refuelling stop for lunch at Bakers’ Hall and concluding with a cuppa at Grocers’ Hall. I stayed the course of 8.5 miles and forty halls and raised £900, of which £200 will go to the Lord Mayor’s Charities, the remainder to our WCCA Charitable Trust Fund. 

Open House Saturday 22/09 saw me in St Stephen Walbrook, one of Wren’s most perfect churches, usually hidden behind Mansion House, but now exposed by demolition for redevelopment of the massive Bucklersbury site. The circular Henry Moore Altar in St Stephen’s gave a portent of an event the following week. On Sunday there was a lunch generously given by David and Mary Cole-Adams at their home in Muswell Hill, for the Masters (and their spouses) that he had served. A delightfully informal event, with abundance of good food good wine and good company! 

Nothing until Thursday 27/09. The Guild of Air Pilots Tymms Memorial Lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society was an insight into the complex logistics of the aerial warfare of the First Gulf War, somewhat drily presented by Air Chief Marshall Sir William Wratten, not my favourite topic, but a comprehensive view of the almost labyrinthine command structure. The next day Friday 28/09 saw my first planned Company visit, to the Henry Moore Foundation at Perry Green, near Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire.

Henry Moore (1898-1986) was the archetypal Yorkshireman yet he spent over 45 years working in rural Hertfordshire. In 1940 his London studio was damaged in an air raid and he moved out to rent part of an old farmhouse ‘Hoglands’ that he’d heard about through friends. Surprisingly he stayed put, bought the whole house and established the first of many studios, dotted around a domain that includes major sculpture set in a garden designed by his wife, Irina. The whole is now administered by the charitable foundation, set up in the late 1970s. We had an outstanding day, visiting ‘Hoglands’ in the morning, its artistic clutter ranging from pre-historic and ethnic sculptures, to paintings by Courbet and Manet, interspersed with antique and 1950s furnishings. The afternoon tour included the Bourne studio with its outlook on the sheep field, the subjects of his sensitive sketches, and the Aisled Barn, a mediaeval structure relocated from one of his farms, hung with tapestries from the Singleton workshop, taken from some of his most characteristic graphics, including the wartime Shelter Sketchbooks. The guides were all excellent with insights into the man and his motivation. Between tours we lunched in ‘The Hoops’, now owned by the Foundation, where we were well fortified. Not even the bouts of inclement weather could dampen our enthusiasm.

this post written and illustrated by Master Mervyn Miller