On Tuesday 13 November Professor Robert Hill’s Horners’ Company Ralph Anderson Memorial Lecture at the Royal Society of Medicine addressed Polymers in hip replacement, spinal osteoporosis and dentistry – the very matters which those of us of a certain age might expect to encounter so it was good to be briefed in advance. Poly-this and that, poly-everything, except polyfilla, which was what the spinal injections actually looked like! A hearty supper hastened recovery mode. After a business meeting on the afternoon of the 14th I hurried to Mansion House to hear the new Lord Mayor, Roger Gifford, present his Annual Address to Masters and Clerks. Would he mention the hiatus with the coach the previous Saturday? He did. Rescued by the Pageant Master, he stood in the review vehicle, feeling like the Pope in the Popemobile ‘only not so holy’. The address proper was concerned with his determination to retain the City in pole position as the World’s leading Financial Centre. I can’t recall him mentioning the imminent performance of a ‘trading opera’ in the Egyptian Hall, which received publicity later. And I only remembered that I should have asked him whether, as a musician, he would hold a performance of Walton’s ‘A song of the Lord Mayor’s table’, (originally commissioned by the Goldsmiths Company about 50 years ago) when homeward bound to attend a virtuoso piano recital at Letchworth Music Club, in the Arts and Crafts Friends Meeting House.
Next day, 15 November, I had a train journey north to attend the Annual Dinner of the YORK GUILD OF BUILDING, with Consort Ann, at the 15th century Merchant Taylors’ Hall. We met up at the station, then checked into our riverside hotel and enjoyed a late bar lunch looking out over the Ouse. Waylaid by Stephen and Deidre, our initial plan of pithering around the mediaeval streets got no further that Yates’s Wine Lodge on the north bank. The Dinner was a friendly occasion although someone slipped in referring to me as ‘Governor’ of WCCA. The reply to the toast to the Guests was given by the property manager of York University – earnest and lengthy – I was tempted to ask for a CPD Certificate. As the original master plan and buildings on campus were a sophisticated variant of the CLASP system and by Robert Matthew/Johnson Marshall it is not inconceivable that they might get listed… Pevsner’s verdict was ‘the best of the new (1960s) universities visually and structurally’. So in its day was Merchant Taylor’s Hall, and still is, an enduring masterpiece of skilled carpentry.
A brush with the complexity of present-day construction procurement came with a bang at the Annual TEAMBUILD WEEKEND, at Lane End Conference Centre, High Wycombe. WCCA awards a prize and the Master is one of the judges (as is the peer contemporary Master of the Constructors Company). I arrived at 0930 on Saturday 17 November to the initial presentations by groups of young construction professionals across the construction piste as they launched into their site masterplanning proposals for a key block in the centre of King’s Cross Regeneration Area. Had I known in advance I could have walked the site as I am to and fro the station several times a week. As it was there was little time for briefing (advance material had been opaque) and I learned on the job, a hive of hyperactivity for the ten teams (as also for the judges with almost instant rating, following interviews with the teams, and feedback by the judges). The exercises grew in complexity, with the wild card of redesign to accommodate a modified client brief; procurement, contract and risk (the phase of the WCCA prize); and on Sunday a detailed design of public realm; reaction to disasters on site, and finally a pitch for another project following successful completion of the first project! The intricacies of BIM figured throughout, and those who had has some experience of this were sceptical.
Sandwiched between two days was Saturday Night – the course formal dinner. I had been allocated the Loyal Toast, which is not an onerous task and I relaxed with some serious imbibing. Then came the cabaret by the three-room teams, all rivalry set aside. And of course there was judging of three anarchic lunatic extravaganzas, with the judges line dancing (yes!) after announcing the result. Things also hotted up on Sunday afternoon, with the finalists presentations, more judging, and the Awards Ceremony. I got away at 6.30pm and mercifully the M40, M25 and A1 were all blissfully traffic free. Even so I collapsed in a heap when I reached home.
On Wednesday 21 November the Musicians Benevolent Society St. Cecilia Service was held at St Paul’s Cathedral; as with the Musicians Company evensong, another inspiring event. I processed and waved to my Consort, who had been delayed by a late train. Every St Cecilia service features a newly commissioned composition: Alan Roth’s Jubilate Deo ‘Rejoice in the Lord all peoples on earth’ was as joyful as its title, with sharp fanfares from the trebles ringing out and reverberant in the long echo across the dome. However, Walton’s ‘Coronation’ Te Deum was not eclipsed, even though I missed the tone colour of the original orchestral accompaniment. After the service we processed out with Elgar’s noble Organ Sonata roaring out! Having (probably due to the changeover of Clerks) missed out booking luncheon at Merchant Taylor’s Hall, Upper Warden Jaki joined consort Ann and I for a light lunch in the Paternoster Square Chop House. It was raining hard as we left. Sadly this disrupted Ann’s journey home through the sodden fields of Northamptonshire.
written by Master Mervyn Miller
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