The Village PCC have been working hard to provide a new Pétanque (perhaps more familiarly boules) terrain, for the use of villagers of all ages. Fund raising and grant aid brought this wish to life, and the terrain was officially opened on a cold Sunday morning on the 26th of November 2023.
Cold weather never puts off a determined community and there was a good turn-out to see the facility inaugurated, and soon examined and tested by young and old alike.
Wyke Millennium Lodge was pleased to donate funds to assist the Village in creating this facility, and look forward to more active involvement with the community in the future (as in the past), we are here to help.
The first spade has broken ground on the Hull’s new Veterans’ Village site.
The early-morning event was a fitting precursor to the city’s observation of Remembrance Day, this weekend. Assisted by the Lord Lieutenant, East Riding High Sheriff, the leader of East Riding Council and trustees, team members and proud supporters of the project, Hull 4 Heroes founder and CEO Paul Matson performed the ceremony at the 22-acre site off Priory Road.
Hull 4 Heroes said
“The idea for the Veterans’ Village started a very long time ago, and with a global pandemic among other issues halting its progress for quite some time, we are hugely excited that this day has finally arrived. With the support of both Hull City Council and East Riding of Yorkshire Council, the 22-acre site next to Priory Road in Hull will be utilised to develop a residential transitional village, training and support facility and a community hub.
“The site’s unique location provides both a tranquil rural environment with an established local community, fundamental in aiding veterans and their families with the transitional journey to civilian life, while also enhancing and extending the public accessible community space; ensuring its sustainability for future generations. Thank you to everyone who has supported us so far, we cannot wait for the next step of our journey.” (credits – HullLive 12th November 2023)
A magnificent effort led by Paul Matson BEM, a member of Wyke Millennium Lodge, we are proud that Paul puts into practice in such a meaningful and important way, the essential ethos of Freemasonry.
Want to help? See Hull 4 Heroes details below:
PERSONAL DONATIONS
Every donation makes a real difference to veterans in need and we genuinely appreciate every one. Your donation helps the Veteran Village to offer support to our veterans and every donation already made has helped us to improve the lives of those who have served. There are different ways to donate and contribute, you can make a one-off donation or a regular donation. You can leave a legacy donation, donate in memory or as a company. We genuinely appreciate each and every donation we receive and work hard to ensure that your donation makes a real difference.
Donate today and help our veterans and their families build the future they deserve.
Our November meeting was again a working night, with the main event being the passing of Brother Chris Wall to the second degree.
We were pleased to welcome the Assistant Provincial Grand Master Worshipful Brother Chris Thomas and his team of active rank officers to our meeting and ceremony. it certainly added to the occasion for our candidate and was a welcome honour for our Lodge.
We were pleased to Pass Brother Wall in an excellent ceremony and in such good company. The tone of the evening was set at the outset by Worshipful Brother Thomas, and we were all able to enjoy a relaxed and pleasant time, both in the Lodge and at the Festive Board.
We were reminded that next year will be the beginning of the Festival for the Province of Yorkshire North and East Ridings, which is our opportunity to raise funds for the Masonic Charities that provide support to so many good causes outside of Freemasonry.
At the Festive Board we were treated to the usual excellent Tickton Grange fayre, we toasted the visiting APGM, and Worshipful Brother Thomas kindly responded, giving us insights into the activities of the Province and the direction that Festival 2024 will take us.
Our Senior Warden toasted the visitors, and when he had been advised that we had a volunteer to respond from a foreign territory he had naturally assumed that meant a brother from Lancashire (its a Yorkshire thing…) , but was pleased to advise that it was in fact Worshipful Brother Armardas Tuboalabo, a member of the Port Harcourt Lodge No 3881 EC in Nigeria. We were delighted to welcome Worshipful Brother Armardas and enjoyed both his company, and his response on behalf of the visitors.
A goodtime was had by all, as can be seen from the following photographs:
Assistant Provincial Grand Master W Bro Chris Thomas with Brothers Phil Lord (left) and Chris Wall (right)
The Assistant Provincial Grand Master and his team
Happy have we met, happy have we been, happy do we part and may we happy meet again!
Our meeting on the 9th of October was a mixture of joy and sadness, the sad part was that this was the first meeting since the death of our Bro Jason Liversidge, who passed to the Grand Lodge above on the 5th of August 2023.
The Worshipful Master gave a moving eulogy recording Jason’s life and his ‘never say die’ attitude, despite suffering two life limiting illnesses, Motor Neurone Disease and Fabry’s Disease. Jason had wanted to follow in his Father and Grandfathers footsteps and become a Mason, something he achieved in 2018 when he joined our Lodge, MND and Fabry’s never held him back.
He was an excellent member and good company, he will be sadly missed by all of us in Wyke Millennium, but most of all by his wife Liz and his two daughters Lily and Poppy.
The joyous elements of the evening included formalising the donations made by the Lodge to the Tickton PCC towards their Pétanque (more familiarly boules) terrain being constructed for the village, the welcoming of a new joining member, and the main event of the evening which was to Pass Bro Phil Lord to the Second Degree.
Brother Phil reached another milestone in his masonic career and was supported by visiting friends from 5 sister Lodges; an excellent night was had by all, and as usual we were well fed and watered by this excellent hotel, and we remain truly grateful to the Whymant family for their continued hospitality over the last 23 years.
It is with great sadness that we announce the death of our Brother Jason Liversidge on the 5th of August, peacefully at home with his wife and daughters there to bid him farewell.
Jason joined the Wyke Millennium Lodge in 2018 and attracted support from Grand Lodge and Provincial Grand Lodge in his wish to become a Freemason. Despite his devastating illnesses he played an active part in the Lodge, rising to Junior Warden and then latterly as Assistant Secretary. His voice generating computer allowed him to deliver his ritual, and unlike many of us he was word perfect. Latterly as his health failed and MND robbed him of the ability to use the computer screen effectively, he continued in his post assisted by several willing brethren who spoke his words for him.
Whenever he could, he was in attendance at the Lodge and only illness forced him to miss a meeting. The Provincial Grand Master at the time, R W Brother Jeffrey Gillyon, relaxed the rules for attendance at the festive board so that his wife and carer could be present, and be in readiness for any emergency that might occur. Happily none did and they too were able to enjoy their time with us. I never heard any complaints from any visitors about the ladies being in attendance, and they were always warmly welcomed. Thank you Brethren.
We will miss Jason, his presence served as a reminder of why we joined Freemasonry, and he kept us grounded. If we couldn’t support someone who needed our help in and out of the Lodge, our organisation would be poor thing indeed. Thankfully Masonry shone through.
Jason as Junior Warden with the WM Andrew Cooke, the Assistant Provincial Grand Master Allan Armbrister and his Provincial Team
Jason was first diagnosed with Fabry disease in 2012. An MND diagnosis followed in 2013.
Jason was only 37 when he was diagnosed and has 2 young daughters who have also inherrited Fabry disease. Jason despite his diagnosis continued to be a fantastic father to his two young children and loving husband to his wife Liz. He raised awareness for MND amd broke two world records.
Jason suffered a cardiac arrest in 2022 and was resuscitated by his wife and carers. He was having Dialysis 3 times a week and receiving 24 hour care from an an amazing team of carers. Many health battles have happened over the years and Jason fought bravely so he could be with his family.
Jason unfortunately had a medical emergency on the 4th August resulting in an admission to hospital. His wife and children were given the devastating news that he was not going to make it. Jason’s wish was to die at home surrounded by his family. Liz and Jason’s team made this a reality, Jason returned home on the evening of the 5th August, surrounded by his wife and children, Jason passed peacefully.
On the 12th of June 2023, we held the first working night for our newly installed master, W Brother Malcolm Grange. It was a ‘white table’ event where wives, partners and friends of masonry were welcomed to our festive board.
After a short meeting were we welcomed two new joining members to the Lodge and proposed a third, as well as voting contributions to 4 worthy causes, namely the South Holderness Swimming Club, support for Tim Weston a 20 year old student undertaking a trek to the Himalayas to raise funds for Meningitis research, support for Connaught Court and lastly to the Daisy Appeal (Castle Hill Hospital), we had the usual high quality meal courtesy of the Tickton Grange Hotel and were treated to a guest speaker, Mrs Olga Coates who gave a talk entitled ‘Life behind the Iron Curtain’. The following is an extract from the minutes of our meeting’s after proceedings which gives a flavour of Olga’s talk:
The Worshipful Master introduced our guest speaker for the evening, Mrs Olga Coates, who gave us a talk on ‘Life behind the Iron Curtain’. A potted history of her parents escape from pre-war Ukraine and Stalin’s forced famine (killing a reported 40 million people), then an anonymous part of the USSR, to Poland, only to be caught up in the second world war and forced to work by the Nazi regime in Germany as slave labour. Eventually they managed to make their way to England after the war and were located in a refugee camp in Priory Road Hull, where Olga was born.
The family worked in agriculture as many ex-eastern Europeans were prized for their knowledge and hard work in that key post-war industry. Eventually her father was offered a job in a local village by a farmer and with it came a tied cottage. A huge benefit for the family!. Arriving at their new home with the few possessions they had, they spent the night on the wooden floor with no furniture, curtains or beds. Drafty and cold but a home, the villagers soon learnt of their plight and rallied around to provide the basics needed to make it a proper home.
Her father and mother were hard working and her mother especially so to make ends meet, often picking peas, on a piece-work basis, 5 times more than any other worker, to try and provide some little extras for her family.
The tied cottage was eventually condemned as unfit to live in for children and the family were offered a council house, which they accepted even though it added an extra 16 mile round cycle trip to her father’s place of work.
Life was tough in the UK for the family but even worse for the family they left behind in the Ukraine. Under Stalin the purges continued and the people lived a peasant existence. Gulags were part of life and even a small step out of line could send a person to certain death in one.
During the post war period Olga’s mother suffered immense mental stress wondering about her lost family in Ukraine. Eventually several decades later correspondence came through heavily censored from the USSR. A prompt reply was not in turn responded to and the worst was feared that her Ukraine family had been purged to a Gulag.
More decades and more mental strife were to pass before contact was made again and this turned out to be because of a simple slip by the local post-mistress in the village were Olga and her family had lived before moving to their council house, sending the reply from her relatives in Ukraine back as not-delivered, rather than just finding out the forwarding address for Olga’s mother. On both sides of Europe the family had feared the worst for their relatives in the UK and in Ukraine. A sad story of assumed tragedy that could have been avoided, leading to immense mental suffering.
Happily this further contact came to a happier ending, but not without further obstacles being encountered along the way. Eventually Olga’s uncle and aunt managed to fly to Heathrow and visit the family in their home near Hull. Fascinated by the things that we in the UK took for granted in the 1990’s, running water, hot water, flushing toilets. The latter becoming an object of fascination for Olga’s visiting relatives, who regularly flushed the loo, just to see it work.
Of even more fascination was the availability of food from the shops and the range of choices for even the basics such as bread. Ukraine had two types of bread both hard and black and unremarkable, and yet in the UK there was a preponderous of choice. The relaxed time that British people had, weekends to enjoy themselves, nice clothes, ladies who went around in high heels, it was a revelation to someone from rural Ukraine at that time.
Just before their return to Ukraine, Olga’s relatives refused to go into the local ASDA store; it was just too much for them. They had, they said, been living a lie; brain-washed by the USSR into believing the West was poverty stricken and the people of the West were living a life of bare existence, when in fact the opposite was true. It was very distressing for them.
In the 90’s the USSR fell apart and Olga determined to go to Ukraine to meet here family there. Travelling on such a journey was arduous and hazardous, but she made it and was welcomed and feted not just by her own family but by the whole village. A true journey of life, Olga was shown by her aunt the comb that Olga’s mother had wanted to take with her when she escaped from Ukraine all those years ago. Still held by her sister in remembrance. Olga would have liked to have taken it back to her mother, but her aunt refused, it was her memento of her sister and it was staying in Ukraine. Olga was inundated with presents from the village, handmade feather filled cushions, she could only take a few as they would otherwise have filled the plane; she returned home a happier person, that she had seen her family and found out more about their history and life.
Olga’s talk took an hour and could have gone on longer still. Everyone was enthralled and saddened in equal measure. No wonder that the Ukrainian people will not accept being forced back under the yoke of an oppressive Russian by the current conflict. We should not forget Olga’s story and the lessons behind it. Slava Ukraini!!
All the ladies present on the evening received a gift of a replica ‘anointing spoon’ as used at King Charles 111’s coronation as a memento of the event and of a good night at Wyke Millennium in June 2023.
Olga giving her talk – ‘Life behind the Iron Curtain’
