At Southport Masonic Hall, a grand celebration was held for an extremely distinguished member of Victoria Lodge No 2360. Roy Crawford has been a long time stalwart and active contributor to Masonry and on reaching his 50th year in the fraternity, an exceptionally large contingent of visitors joined their Victoria brethren to mark the occasion.
The respect and affection held for Roy was evident even before proceedings began with the brethren of his lodge warmly greeting each other with smiles outside the lodge room. This included a large Provincial contingent including Assistant Provincial Grand Master Frank Umbers and his team, who had made the journey to Southport to make the presentation to Roy and take part in the celebrations.
Master of the lodge Brian McCarthy conducted the business of the lodge prior to the presentation. The Provincial contingent then proceeded in with great fanfare. Frank Umbers was accompanied by a large contingent including, among others, two acting group officers who were proud members of Victoria lodge itself, the group chairman Phil Stock and Provincial Assistant Grand Director of Ceremonies Les Gilson, who is the current secretary of the lodge and looked particularly happy to be there and strode in perfect step with their heads held high.
Frank was warmly welcomed by the Brian who then offered him the gavel. Frank accepted with grace and a chair was brought forwards for Roy who with a smile as welcoming as it was genuine, took his seat for the presentation. Frank quickly showed his uniquely human touch in the volume of research he had done. His job had no doubt been made easier by the fact Roy had led a rather glamorous and exciting life, both inside and outside Freemasonry.
Roy was born in Southport in October 1939 to a large and loving family. The youngest of four, the family also lived with Roy’s grandmother and uncles and a large menagerie of pets. This served to produce a house filled with love and laughter and Roy was privileged to have a very happy childhood. He went to school in Southport, which gave him his lifelong love of history and on leaving became a motor mechanic. This however didn’t satisfy Roy’s adventurous spirit and soon after, at the tender age of 17, he joined the merchant navy. Training was in Gloucestershire and Roy quickly rose to be Bosun’s Mate and then Bosun. He was lucky enough to get his first job on a large liner travelling to the America’s giving a proactive spirit such as Roy’s many opportunities to see the world and experience life to the fullest.
Working on a series of boats, he visited New York, Halifax and Montreal before going on to work five cruises in the Caribbean. As if this wasn’t glamorous enough, he then went on to visit South America taking in such exotic locations as Curaçao, Venezuela, Argentina and Brazil with the beach at Santos being particularly memorable. It goes without saying these were extremely happy years for Roy, seeing some of the most beautiful parts of the world and being paid for the privilege!
These years only started to come to an end in 1959 after Roy met his wife Dorothy at a Floral Hall dance one evening. Roy was smitten, and the couple were soon engaged and after serving out his final contract with the merchant navy, Roy ‘swallowed the hook’ in November 1960 and never looked back. Roy and Dorothy married in August 1961. First living with Dorothy’s mother, they then moved briefly to Bamber Bridge, but the desire to return to Southport was so strong they soon moved back and have lived in and near the town happily ever since. Three beautiful children, Susan, Mitchel and Gavin soon followed and Roy was delighted to be able to create a loving home life that mirrored the one he himself experienced as a child.
Career wise, Roy had a number of jobs after leaving the navy but excelled most as a salesman, at which he was most formidable! However, his adventurous independent spirit soon refused to sit quietly and he eventually started his own printing and stationary business, R & DM Crawford. His wife and children all became involved, bringing the same family spirit to business they already had at home.
Roy’s Masonic history is as distinguished as it is long. He originally joined Victoria Lodge in 1974 and, with his usual zeal, served as assistant secretary for five years before he even became master. Such a promotion was inevitable though and Roy went through the chair for the first time in 1990, organising the lodge centenary celebration the same year. Making friends was always easy for Roy and Dorothy and the social aspect of Victoria Lodge had quickly become part of their lives, Roy being particularly active at proposing candidates and instructing new members coming in about Masonic rituals and workings.
Dorothy, for her part, showed equal energy and the first year Roy was master, on learning he had to start the dance with a waltz, proceeded to book dancing lessons for them both. Roy went on to serve as master again in 2008 and director of ceremonies. All this hard work naturally led to a succession of promotions as Roy was promoted to ProvAGSwdB in 1993, PPDepGSuptWks in 1998 and PPJGW in 2008.
Of course this was not enough to satisfy Roy’s energy. He was an active member of Silver Jubilee Lodge of Installed Masters No 8818, serving in the chair in 2013 and having two separate stints as secretary. In the Royal Arch he was exalted into Banks Chapter No 7213 in 1984, serving as first principal in 1994, scribe Ezra for five years and as acting Provincial Deputy Grand Sword Bearer in 2012. He was also active in several other Masonic Orders.
This energy and attitude to hard work was recognised still further in 2021 when Roy was presented with the Order of Merit by the Provincial Grand Master. The description of Roy’s distinguished service was observed with rapt attention by the large crowd present, all noting the example shown to both younger and older brethren alike. Phil Stock then read out the certificate, before it was presented to Roy in front of the lodge.
The gavel was then returned to the WM, who closed the lodge and the evening proceeded to the festive board. As upstairs, the volume of people in the room was a testament to how many lives Roy has touched over the years, and the congratulations continued into the evening. Les Gilson had once again outdone himself as every seat had an extremely high-quality booklet waiting for the attendees, containing Roy’s life story and the long list of his Masonic achievements.
A description of the evening cannot pass without reference to the speeches, which were particularly noteworthy. Phil Stock first rose to thank Frank Umbers for coming and congratulate him on his upcoming promotion to Deputy Provincial Grand Master. Frank, after thanking Phil and his own team then seamlessly turned to toast the principal guest of the evening, noting the large volume of esteemed and grand officers who had turned out to pay their respects to Roy, including not just the Provincial team, but also Brian Henshaw, Neil Latham, Trevor Rimmer and Chris Hamilton.
Victoria Lodge then resumed the floor as Brian Skinner rose to give a speech thanking Roy for all his help, and particularly his great enthusiasm. Brian and Roy had first moved next door to each other in 1968 and Brian regaled the brethren with some of his many anecdotes on how Roy had looked after and entertained him and others over this time. Following this speech a cheque was presented to Frank for £200 to the Heart Foundation to provide yet another charitable note to the evening.
The final word of course belonged to Roy, who as always was not to be outdone when it came to an entertaining speech. With his customary charm, Roy first made his speech about fun, talking about the great joy Masonry had brought into his life and generating laughter throughout the room with anecdotes on his own early days in Masonry. He then made his speech, not about himself but others, thanking all those present and especially Brian Skinner for his many kind words and long years of close friendship. He ended in kindness by distributing a number of unexpected gifts, including to the staff of the Masonic hall. At the end, all applauded this most excellent of Masons on his special day, confident in the knowledge that as long as men like Roy existed, there would always be hope and positivity in the world.
