Masonic Career 1974


1977


Joined Aviation and Combined Services Lodge 8504 in Sussex


1982 WM of SPL 1983 WM of ACS 1984-9 Secretary, SPL 1985 Exalted into Cockfosters Chapter No 6883


1990 First Principal of Cockfosters


1992 LGR 1996 Assistant Grand Pursuivant


2003 PAGDC in Supreme Grand Chapter


2008 PAGDC (Craft) 2009 Metropolitan Grand Inspector and promoted to PSGD and PGSoj


2010 2013


First Principal of Brecknock Chapter No 651


Assistant Metropolitan Grand Master and promoted to PGSwdB


Paul is in 6 Craft Lodges, 5 Chapters and in 12 additional orders.


Initiated in Spencer Park Lodge ("SPL") No. 6198 aged 27


journalist hoping that he could come back to academia at some future point. He remembers writing over 100 letters (no e-mail in those days!) to prospective employers before being offered a post with the Westminster Press, one of the largest provincial newspaper consortia. WP had a good practical training scheme, but his first assignment was to a weekly paper based in Northumberland! He attended a course, in County Durham, on Journalism and to his surprise, he came top and took the title of Graduate Journalist of the Year! He was promoted and moved by WP to Darlington, where the daily newspaper, "The Northern Echo", had recently been edited by the illustrious Harold Evans. The move to a morning, as opposed


to a weekly newspaper, was a real eye- opening moment and he found the practises of newspaper journalism of that time questionable to say the least. Eventually, he decided to resign, without even a job to go to! Luckily he was not out of work for more than a month and at the same time took his writing skills in a new direction to become the Publicity/Press Officer for Head Wrightson, an engineering group based around Tees-side. He very much enjoyed the creative work of drafting press releases, advertising copy and articles/marketing material and started to get interested in graphic design. His father being ill, Paul returned to London to assist the family and took a job with Fairey plc, a sideways move from engineering to aeronautics , again doing PR, which he grew to enjoy more and more - and subsequently moved on to Rediffusion Ltd , also in communications. At this point, aged 31, he decided to


take a career break, thinking that he would travel a little bit and see the world. In fact he ended up taking a post in Saudi Arabia as the Personal Assistant to the Minister for Ports and Shipping, His Excellency Dr Fayez Badr, who had been put into place to sort out the Kingdom's huge logistical problems, caused by its rapid development. Armed with virtually unlimited powers and a vast budget, this Minister changed the situation dramatically over the next few years – during which time Paul was the Minister's principal point of contact for western companies anxious to pick up contracts to help resolve the kingdom’s problems. This gave Paul invaluable top-level experience of government and civil service matters, not to mention insights into the still very closed world of Arabic culture of that time. He recalls that his working relationship with the Minister was quite volatile and he (along with many others) was "fired" a few times! By the time he was ready to leave, his old manager from Rediffusion was in Saudi and they had dinner together by chance and out of the blue he offered Paul a job. There was a battle over getting him a visa to leave the country, but that is a story for another time! Deciding to move from in-house PR


to consultancy work, he later moved to Charles Barker plc in the City (at the same time as W. Bro Simon Dixon, featured on page 26, but in a different division). With specialist knowledge of engineering and electronics, he gradually assumed responsibility for the company’s largest client, The Plessey Company plc, where he was responsible for part of the enormous defence operation that saved Plessey from the giant takeover bid launched


VW Bro. Paul Calderwood around the time of his Initiation into Freemasonry.


18


ISSUE 13


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