As chance would have it, an article on Women Masons in the UK appeared in yesterday's "Guardian" newspaper. The full text is to be found HERE
and it makes very interesting reading.

I had always thought is was an all-male preserve, but apparently Freemasonry has been formally practised by women in their own lodges in the UK since 1913, but this was only made publicly known when the more open policy was adopted by Masons in general in the mid 1990s. There are apparently around 10,000 female masons in the UK.

This news was a revelation to me - but, from talking about this article with my daughter, it appears she has been under an even greater misapprehension about the Masons and their "secrets". When she was a lot younger she had heard me say that Masons roll up one trouser leg. She had also heard about the old north country "sport" of "ferret legging" (where men tie up the bottoms of their trousers, stuff ferrets down the top end, tighten the belt and see how long they can endure this. - The record, I believe, stands at over 5 hours). Somewhere along the line, she put the two together and until yesterday genuinely believed that this is what Masons met to do in secret: put ferrets down their trousers !

Her school until she was 11 was nextdoor to a Masonic Hall, and the school used the hall for various activities. She told all her friends about the ferrets and whenever they went in there, they would look to see if they could find where the Masons kept the cages.

In a way, I was sorry to disappoint her on that one. She could have carried on all her life thinking that was the big Masonic "Secret"........and, of course, there is at least one generation of children who went to that school who maybe will.

- jeanie :)