RAY RIDE L


THE MEN AT THE TOP:


ondon, 1941-45. Imagine the terror of the V1 and 2 campaigns; the noisy sirens, the rush to the bomb shelter.


Ray Ride with his wife Iris, around the time of his Initiation.


Masonic Career


1982 Initiated Brixton Ramblers Lodge [“BR”] No 3347 Aged 41 years


1989 WM of BR 1990 Invested as Secretary 1997 Exalted into Bevan Chapter [“BC”] No 2458 [Buckinghamshire Province]


1999 LGR 2000 1st Principal BC 2001 Joined Royal Standard Chapter [“RSC”] 2003 SLGR 2004 PPrGStB[Bucks] RA 2005 First Principal RSC 2006 PAGDC [Craft] VGO Harewood Group [2 Lodges]


2007 SVO with 4 VOs and 12 lodges under MetGInsp W Bro Peter Lewin, PSGD


2010 Metropolitan Principal Sojourner MetGChap 2010/11


2011 VO RA under MetGInsp W Bro Richard Greenhill, PGSoj


2012 MetGInsp in Craft and RA and promoted PSGD [PAGSoj]


2014 Promoted PGSoj 28


Waiting in the low light watching a trickle of condensation running down the bricks of a cold cellar wall, whilst the noise outside goes on… This in fact is one of Ray Ride's earliest memories and a uniquely 'London' perspective, as Ray was born (in 1941) and bred in Fulham, his parents having decided that unlike most other children, he was too young to be evacuated to the countryside. Despite this, he gained affection for country living by regular visits as a child to his grandparents' house in Essex, where they farmed their smallholding in Hullbridge and where he was shown how things worked on the farm to create as much self-sufficiency as possible. His father worked as an engineer for a major chemical


company based in Fulham and Ray's schooling was also kept local, going to St John’s School in the Dawes Road and later becoming a 'Henryite' at Henry Compton School. Whilst he was sufficiently academic to gain the requisite number of 'O' Levels, it was sport, he recounts, that he lived for, being in his


own words "football and cricket mad!" In fact, sporting allusions and metaphors abounded during a very pleasant interview session with W. Bro Ray Ride, PSGD, a MetGInsp since 2012. For example, when talking about the 34,000+ masonic memberships that we have in London, he likened that total to "probably more than Tottenham Hotspur get on a good day as spectators!" He really was however very good at junior level football and


continued to play and train intensively right throughout his teenage years both in and away from school. He remembers Ted Drake, the team manager of Chelsea FC who took the club to its first league title, giving his team the advice that to break in football boots, you needed to put them on, stand in a bowl of cold water until the leather was thoroughly steeped and then run until you couldn’t run any further! Sadly however, he was not quite good enough to be taken on to the later stages that might have led to a professional career. He also remembers many evening visits to Soho where he was able to satisfy his passion for skiffle music- the craze for which was just starting to emerge and which had the salutary effect of making him work hard at his jazz trumpet playing! In 1959, his Father decided that football needed to be placed to


one side and 'assisted' Ray in coming to a decision to start work. He thus joined the outer reaches of the Civil Service, working as a clerk in the then large Post Office Savings Bank complex located nearby in Kensington High Street, where he manually calculated the interest in the passbooks of the thousands of those saving with the Post Office. It wasn't football, but it was still a good move. Not just because it gave him a solid grounding in administration matters, but also because he met his wife Iris who was also working there. Regrettably in 1960, his father was involved in an industrial accident at work, where he was responsible for the engineering of a chemical process. In trying to shut down a furnace that was overheating, he inhaled some noxious fumes and was badly incapacitated, passing away 18


ISSUE 19


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