WBro Colin Day was Initiated into the Douglas Lodge No.1725 at an Emergency Meeting on 17th January 1946. He had just been demobilised from one of the more hazardous positions in
the Army, a glider-pilot.

It was therefore fitting that his 60 years of service to Freemasonry was celebrated at another, but now rare Emergency Meeting held at the Ancient College Gateway Maidstone on 31st May 2006. Two days earlier WBro Colin had celebrated his 90th birthday. The occasion was attended by the Provincial Grand Master, RWBro Michael Bailey, together with the Past Pro Grand Master MWBro The Lord Cornwallis, the Past Provincial Grand Master RWBro John Bonomy OBE, the Deputy Metropolitan Grand Master RWBro Russell Race, the Assistant Provincial Grand Master WBro John Grumbridge PSGD, and other Grand Officers.

In presenting the 60 year Certificate to WBro Colin, the Provincial Grand Master referred to some of the more unusual aspects of his Masonic career. He was Proposed as a Candidate for Initiation by his father, WBro Sidney Day the Secretary of the Lodge, (later the Deputy Provincial Grand Master), and Seconded by his father-in-law. When, in a few years WBro Colin became Junior Deacon of the Lodge, his was the hand that guided Fiennes Cornwallis at his Initiation. By one of those extraordinary coincidences, Colin’s father was Junior Deacon at the Initiation of Fiennes’ father, Wykeham Stanley Cornwallis (later Lord Cornwallis and Provincial Grand Master).

In those early years WBro Colin was one of four Lewis’s in the Lodge, and the Provincial Grand Master emphasised the importance of the family to Masonry, and he asked particularly that his thanks be given to Colin’s wife Rosemary for the support she had given to his splendid Masonic career.

WBro T R Swinburne
Secretary, Douglas Lodge No.1725

From Ed44, P12