Good Morning Sir, it is a great privilege for us that you have agreed to be interviewed for the inaugural issue of MQ Magazine. With all the emphasis in recent years on communication and information, do you think there is any reason why the United Grand Lodge of England has not up to now had its own in-house magazine?

There are probably very good reasons why it has not been possible. After all, we have a very large membership of over 300,000 people and simply finding them and keeping a record of where they all are would have been quite a task. With modern techniques of building databases, this has become possible at relatively low cost. This is a wonderful opportunity and I am delighted that we are now going to have this vehicle for communicating with all our members and, indeed, with a great many other people. I understand the magazine is not exclusively for Freemasons, so I warmly welcome this initiative. I hope it will be a great success.

The idea is that MQ will be part of the mechanism for reintegrating Freemasonry into the community. Its timing is quite apposite, as its launch is just before Freemasonry in the Community Week this summer. It is part of that process, and I hope that you feel it is a sensible way to go.

I think it is, and it will be most interesting to see the way it develops. But it must not be seen as just a way of telling Freemasons things that we want them to know, because it obviously needs to be broader and less exclusive than that. I think there is a scope for a magazine that allows Masonic issues to be freely discussed in a way they have not been in the past, together with a great many other subjects. I hope it will be as broad as possible.

You've had an extremely interesting and varied life; what is it that has encouraged you to include Freemasonry in it?

Like so many people, I grew up in almost total ignorance of Freemasonry, except that I was conscious of a strong family link, because my father was initiated when he was in the navy, and later became Grand Master, but not for long, because he died very early. Also his father and two of his brothers were Masons. Many people who join Freemasonry know very little and need to be inducted into it gradually. That's what happened to me. I found that as I learned more and more about it I became more interested and enthusiastic.

To turn to Freemasonry, was it relevant in your military career?

I don't think I would honestly say that it featured. I was aware that there were a number of army lodges - sometimes regimental lodges - but I didn't encounter one when I was serving in the army, so I can't say that there was any direct connection. But I do think that army life and Masonic ideas fit together fairly well; the ideas of discipline and integrity are perfectly complimentary.

Whilst you were travelling, either as Vice-Chairman of the Overseas Trade Board, or when you were in the military, were you able to visit lodges abroad and meet other Freemasons, particularly members of the English lodges abroad?

Whenever I could, yes I did. Sometimes simply by getting together with a group of them at a social occasion, other times by visiting their Grand Lodges. The English constitution exists in many other countries, and we need to show our support and encouragement for them throughout the world. The only time that I've attended a lodge meeting, I think, was in Gibraltar some years ago, when I went to the bicentenary of the Royal Lodge of Friendship there.

Do your duties as Grand Master take you abroad?

They have not taken me abroad specifically except, I think, for that one occasion in Gibraltar. But I've been fortunate to have been able to call on successive Pro Grand Masters and indeed other senior Masons over the years to represent me, and they've been very good and very active in doing that all over the world. All my Pro Grand Masters have been ready to travel to Africa, to India or Australia, usually to install other Grand Masters or senior figures. This maintains the connection and it shows our interest and faith in those lodges.

Turning back to Freemasonry, how has your role as Grand Master fitted into your life?

It's probably true to say that Freemasonry has taken a more prominent part in my life as Grand Master visiting groups of Masons around the country - on the whole not individual lodges - because I decided a long time ago that it would be very difficult to choose particular lodges. What I like to do is to go to Provinces and meet groups of Masons there, because one gets a better idea what they are thinking about. I try to meet as many as possible in an afternoon or evening. Another aspect is being involved in policymaking and talking to senior Masons about the future of Freemasonry and about problems as they occur; all in all it has consumed quite a large part of my life. But, I have been extremely fortunate in that I have been able to leave most of the day-to-day operations of the whole business of Freemasonry to my Pro Grand Masters. I've been extremely fortunate to be served by some wonderful people who have given a huge amount of time and energy to it, and by successive Grand Secretaries (the senior official who works full-time at Freemasons' Hall).

You mentioned that you were involved in policymaking. What do you think is the future for Freemasonry in a changing world - does Freemasonry need to change?

There have already been considerable changes. Most notably we have worked hard over these last few decades to encourage the idea that Freemasonry is not something entirely closed and secret. There is no doubt that principally during the Second World War - and in the years following - that the habit of secrecy and of withholding information had become very ingrained. That did Freemasonry a lot of damage because it also allowed this idea to grow up that we were a secret society, and that did imply that we had guilty secrets that we wanted to keep to ourselves, which made us the object of great suspicion. This undoubtedly did us a great deal of harm because once that sort of idea takes root, it is extremely hard to get rid of it. One still, unfortunately, encounters articles in books and even television programmes which suggest that we've been up to all kinds of malpractice such as shady financial dealings, where one Mason protected the interests of another. Such practices are strictly prohibited. So one of my main preoccupations along with my senior helpers has been to promote a more open climate and habit; this will take a long time to develop, but I believe we have moved quite a long way. We do now, for example, encourage people who are Freemasons to be completely open about the fact that they belong to the craft. We don't intend to publish lists of people. I don't think that's in any way necessary, and certainly it is wrong to force people in public office to declare that they are or are not Masons. We object to that, because we regard that as an intrusion on personal privacy, but we do encourage people to be completely open about their membership. The only thing that we seriously regard as secret and the proceedings in our own lodges, as these are entirely private matters which are not the concern of anyone outside. It's a matter of privacy rather than secrecy.  What the hell is this double-talk?  On one hand he says; “...encourage people who are Freemasons to be completely open about the fact that they belong to the craft.”  “...but we do encourage people to be completely open about their membership.

So what’s all the objection with having a published list of membership? Is it anything to do with the fact, that it will very likely reveal that virtually all our members of parliament, - are also members of the Freemason’s?  Will it reveal the likes of Rupert Murdoch, and many other company bosses, alongside Trade Union bosses who too are on equally good wages as many of their other "brothers", though not those brothers among the 99.9% of the actual workers, whom they’re meant to represent. - As I’ll think you’ll find this is one of the main reasons they object to such a list being made, and why it is our duty to keep insisting that they do supply one, - and by us forcing them to address this fundamental problem within our society, we might one day be able to honestly achieve real transparency of government, - and why we need many people as possible to join this cause, which is; BAN MEMBERS OF SECRET SOCIETIES FROM SERVING IN OUR GOVERNMENT AND ... - http://www.causes.com/causes/643665-ban-members-of-secret-societies...

Do you think that the change in attitude which you've talked about to try and encourage more Freemasons to be more open will be a difficult task to accomplish?

It is never easy to change attitudes in a large organisation. You have to remember that within our membership of more than 300,000 there are many who have grown up with the tradition of regarding anything Masonic as a subject that was never discussed outside, and to expect them to alter that approach is something one needs to work on with patience but I'm confident that over time we can produce a change in attitude. In particular we need to work on the relationship between Freemasonry in the Community Week which we are launching this year. It is designed to make much clearer to people that the ideas of Freemasonry, of good works, honesty, integrity and charitable activities, do benefit society and are generally a force for good in the world. This is something that we can encourage all our members to devote time to.

Are the charitable aspects of Freemasonry important?

Our charitable work is very extensive. The Masonic charities last year raised £20 million, but the effort is not devoted entirely towards Masons or Masonic objectives. The amount given to non-Masonic causes is also very large. The Grand Charity exists very largely to make donations and grants to causes which are nothing to do with Freemasonry. It gives money to a whole range of charities and charitable activities. It amounts to millions of pounds every year and I would like that to be better publicised. I hope that this new quarterly magazine may find space to do this.

Do you see Freemasonry in the Community Week as a watershed in Freemasonry's relationship with the community?

It could well become so, yes. This is purely an experimental week. We hope that it will have beneficial results. It is a very important step for us, and something that could never have happened even perhaps 10 years ago, and certainly longer back would have been really unthinkable. It is something I personally strongly encourage, and I have great belief that it will be to our advantage and to that of society generally.

So what part will you be playing in the week?

There's an important service taking place in St Paul's on 18 June, [2002] which is designated to be multi-denominational, and I'm hoping to come to that. I think it will make an excellent start to the week.

Thank you very much indeed, Sir, for this inaugural interview in MQ Magazine, which is going to be the flagship for Freemasonry in the United Grand Lodge of England. It is excellent that we have your support. [http://www.mqmagazine.co.uk/issue-1/p-11.php]