Charity Awards Luncheon
My first July event was the Company of Arts Scholars Charitable Trust Awards Luncheon on 1st July in Founders’ Hall where those who had received grants from the charity came to meet Trustees and other members of the Company associated with the charity. The guest list was wide, ranging from Dr Nicholas Cullinan, the new Director of The British Museum to individual students who had received individual grants to support their postgraduate studies.
It was an impressive occasion. As John Benjamin, our Middle Warden said in a subsequent e-mail: Right from the outset there was a tangible sense of anticipation and everyone I spoke to was really thrilled to be invited (myself included). The speakers were hugely impressive, and I must mention Emily Pryke (of Sussex University), who made us all realize just how much the awards we are making are truly valued - and appreciated.

Founders’ Hall, by the way, is something of a modern gem among livery halls. Listed at Grade II, in May 2018, as part of Historic England’s review of the best of Postmodernism, its architectural interest is summarised “as a distinctive and nuanced late-C20 reinterpretation of a livery hall, its architectural design fusing neo-Vernacular historicism, Arts and Crafts influences with Post-Modern wit and extravagance, for its quality of craftsmanship and construction, detailed with rigour and consistency.”
Murder Most Horrid!
Earlier in the year, Court Number One at The Old Bailey was the setting for a fascinating lecture about Elizabeth Fry by Liveryman Magdalen Evans. On 2nd July I was back in the same court for the AGM of the Sheriffs’ and Recorder’s Fund, the charity which does so much to help ex-prisoners through grants that encourage them to find a constructive purpose in life. One of the ways that the charity raises money is through a series of extremely well-run events that often happen in the Court and I urge you to find out more about the charity and the events as they are always worth attending in their own right as well as helping the charity. In June, Shirley and I attended Dial Medicine for Murder, a show put on by Doctors Harry Brunjes and Andrew Johns, which traced and contrasted the trials of John Bodkin Adams and Harold Shipman, the latter being the only doctor ever to have been convicted of murdering his patients.

Respect and Protect

Another of our military affiliations is the Cultural Property Protection Unit, a 15-strong team of reservists from all three services who, tis said, have “a flair for Indiana Jones-style adventure”.
The need for such a specialist unit was inspired by the destruction of numerous historic sites in the Middle East, including Iraq’s Nimrud palace, mosques in Mosul and certain Roman ruins in Palmyra. The unit retrieves works stolen by terrorists, investigates looting, and advises on the strong team protection of ancient objects and reporting on sites of interest to the British military. Much of the advice applies closer to home so that training exercises on Salisbury Plain are arranged to avoid blowing up Stonehenge.
The CPPU has a close association with the College of Heralds through one of its members, Captain Cheeseman who is the Richmond Herald of Arms. The Clerk, Deputy Master and I attended a reception at the College on 4th July to mark the retirement of Commander Roger Curtis as commanding officer of the CPPU. The CPPU forms part of a larger miliary group under the command of Colonel Nana Kofi Twumasi- Ankrah, a former equerry to Queen Elizabeth, who will be familiar to many as a television commentator on state occasions.

Per Ardua ad Astra
My next military assignment on Saturday 6th July took me to a windswept airfield near Abingdon, in pouring rain, to attend the Muster of the Thames valley Wing of the Air Training Corps. The Reverend Dr Bill Beaver, a fellow Arts Schoar is one of Chaplains in the Wing. I found myself part of quite a large chain gang of Mayors, Chairmen of County Councils and other civic luminaries. The appalling weather confined us to a spare hanger but the turnout of the cadets was splendid.

The Muster celebrated the merger of the Wing with Buckinghamshire; it is now the largest Wing in the RAFAC and can boast the best colours which were presented to it last year by the Arts Scholars.
This was the first time the new Wing banner was paraded.
Si monumentum requiris circumspice
The Worshipful Company of Plumbers invited Shirley and me to take part in its annual walk visiting (mainly) Wren’s city churches on Tuesday 9th July. Whilst not as bad as the weather for the Wing parade it was yet another wet day but the thirty Masters and consorts who took part were not daunted. We began in Sir Christopher’s biggest project, St Paul’s before taking in the Temple Bar and then heading east. Every church was worthy of a detailed visit in its own right and our knowledgeable guides were able to point out many interesting curiosities as we walked along such as the ancient fire hydrants which the Plumbers’ company had been responsible for in the past.
Lunch took place in St Magnus the Martyr and included an impromptu organ recital by the Plumbers’ Clerk, Adrian Mumford who is a fellow of the Royal College of Organists. Immediately after lunch we diverted from Wren to take in one of the surviving post-war walkways in the City from which we obtained an excellent view of the Pool of London just as a rare event happened: Tower Bridge was raised. The photo below gives you some idea of the weather at that point.

Our last port of call on the tour were the ruins of St Dunstan in the East, now maintained an open space which leads me neatly to be my assignment.
Painters’ Hall
I am fortunate to live in the City of London so could easily return home after the walk to change for dinner at Painter Stainers’ Hall where the Clerk and I were guests of the Master, Ivor Macklin, who had honoured the Arts Scholars by attending my installation as the guest of Past Master Graham Barker. On sitting down, I was immediately struck by the picture on the menu cover which was a reproduction of a watercolour by Ivor’s wife Wendy as it depicted St Dunstan in the East, which I had seen in the flesh, as it were, only a few hours earlier. I am grateful to one of Shirley’s many bears for helping to display the menu cover.

The dinner ended with a rather special display of Sabrage - the art of opening a champagne bottle with the sabre or sword - which I gather Past Master Alan Cook is good at- he is not a specialist in antique weapons for nothing. I was impressed by the display but will not be trying it out at home.
A Holy Banquet
My other City dinner that week was with the Parish Clerks’ company to which I belong as I am the Parish Clerk for St Bartholomew the Great, the oldest extant church in the City, dating from 1123 when an Augustinian Priory was founded alongside the hospital. The unusual thing about that dinner was that it occurred not in a livery hall nor even one of the Inns of Court, to which the Clerks sometimes repair, but in the Guild Church of St Andrew Holborn. The catering was very well done by Mark Grove whose food we will devour after Common Hall in September.
In the steps of Florence Nightingale
On 12th July the Renter Warden and I paid a visit to Claydon in Buckinghamshire to plan the special event in May 2025 to celebrate the 21st birthday of the company. I am very grateful for Liveryman Alexandra Verney and her husband Nicholas for hosting this special occasion in the grounds of Claydon House, now a National Trust property in which Nicholas grew up and where Florence Nightingale spent much of her later life.

This aerial view shows Claydon House on the right. Our luncheon will be served in a marquee in the gardens beyond.
Rough Justice
Beautifully written, immensely engaging, a powerful and disturbing insight into a judge’s work and the choices faced. I cannot improve upon Peter James, bestselling author of the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace series, in describing Judge Wendy Joseph’s latest book which was launched in Pewterers’ Hall on 16th July. Besides being Master of the Pewterers Wendy is of course an eminent Arts Scholar. If you have not read the book, I urge you to obtain a copy and indeed while about it to read Wendy’s earlier bestseller “Unlawful Killings”.
The Light of the World
I am going to talk more about that picture in the next blog but I cannot let the moment pass without thanking so many of you to the fantastic response to the appeal to assist with its conservation in St Paul’s. And if you have not done so already, do book for the Mithras lecture when can hear more about it from Carol Jacobi of Tate Britain.
Roy Sully
8th August 2024
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