Knight versus Higham - part 11 - Regalia and Secrecy again

BBC Radio 4'S Tuesday Call
13 November 1984

In this live radio broadcast, listeners phoned in to Tuesday Call to ask questions about Freemasonry, under the chairmanship of Sue MacGregor. In the transcript below, her words are printed in italic, and those of the two participants are prefixed with

(K) - Stephen Knight author of `The Brotherhood ` or
(H) - Commander Michael Higham, Grand Secretary of the UGLE

to differentiate them from the questioners.

......continued from part 10

And now Val in Bournemouth you have a question for us I think.

(Val) Yes, good morning. I think my question would be to the Commander Higham. I have a friend who is elderly and sick and they have just returned from Malaysia and her husband, they've just come from the North of England back to the South, and her husband died and has left a lot of regalia I believe you call it- I'm afraid I'm not very well up on the technical terms....

You're wondering what should be done with it?

(Val) Yes.

Commander, can I ask you that question?

(H) Val, I'm sorry I haven't got your other name, if you'd let me know and the address has been given on the air.....

Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street....

(H) That's the word! Tell me all about it, we'll look after it for you.

All right, Val, we've given the address and I'll just repeat it very briefly, it`s Freemasons' Hall, Great Queen Street, London WC2B.

A last question very briefly to you Commander, why all the secrecy if it's all so blameless being a Freemason?

(H) Not secrecy, privacy.

But why?

(H) Why? Because we've got a habit of privacy, we're entitled to be private if we want to be. We're actually being a great deal more open now than we used to be ....

Well ....

(H) ... we're not, we're not secret .

. . . you certainly have been [open] on this programme. Thank you to Commander Michael Higham, Grand Secretary of the United Grand Lodge and to Stephen Knight, author of The Brotherhood. From us on Tuesday Call, goodbye.