I have been asked on many occasions how Masonic Napkins came about, this is how :- My husband has been a Freemason for a number of years and having been Master of his lodge, is now a PM. I’m sure he won’t mind me saying that he very much enjoys his masonic dinners; the evidence of which, often comes to light when I have to wash his shirt. I can usually guess what he had to eat from the various splodges!
He often commented on the fact that the paper napkins were never much use to him. With this in mind, I made him a large dinner napkin with a buttonhole that he could use and keep with his other regalia. Along with his shirt, I just put it in the wash and then returned it ready for the next dinner. Whilst all this was going on, I had seen my daughter making her own t-shirts with band names and other logos, she printed them on some special transfer paper and then ironed them on. From that came my first bespoke dinner napkin with my husbands lodge logo ironed on. It was really admired by his brothers and I made a few more for them.
Moving on a couple of years and coping with the empty nest syndrome, I embarked on a Business Degree through Brighton University. Goodness, did this fill the time I now had? It most certainly did. Having never studied to this level in my educational years, I found the challenge harder than my ‘classmates’ as I was by far the most mature student and their study skills were still very fresh. Never one to admit defeat, I began to really enjoy the many and varied topics that we had to cover and began to get good feedback from my tutor on the assignments that I had to hand in.
To be continued…