The Mason Word 

Billy Kay presents a major new four part series on the history of Scottish Freemasonry which has a strong claim to be the spiritual home of a world wide brotherhood numbering close to 6 million people.  Along with Freemasons and academic historians from Scotland and the United States, Billy will explore the Craft’s early history among the country’s medieval stonemasons, revealing and dramatising their rituals. He will also examine why from the 17^th century onward  non-stonemasons and gentlemen were sufficiently intrigued by the Mason’s lore, that they transformed the Craft into the speculative Freemasonry that took off round the world in the 18^th and 19^th centuries.

1. The Mother Lodge

We visit the Mother Lodge of Scotland, Kilwinning in Ayrshire and hear its claim to be the home of Freemasonry with its history going back to the building of Kilwinning Abbey in the 12^th century.  Masons like Lord Elgin will recall the emotion experienced by him and his father when he was first initiated into the craft,  while others remember their fear and awe.  All of them are glad however that they experienced its mystery.

2. 'The Mystic Tie' The mystic tie, according to Robert Burns is the bond shared by brother Masons. As Freemasonry took off in the 18^th and 19^th centuries , many of the great men of European culture were drawn to the craft - Mozart, Sibelius, and Goethe for example, as well as Scottish icons like Burns, Sir Walter Scott and James Boswell.  We shall celebrate the cultural legacy of Freemasonry and hear of the conviviality in music and song that arose out of the harmonies enjoyed when the formal part of the evening was over.

3. The Scottish Rite. We will travel to Fredericksburg Virginia home of the Lodge of Scottish tobacco merchants who initiated George Washington into the Craft, and to Washington DC where the White House and the Capitol Building were built by Edinburgh stonemasons and Freemasons who were among the founder members of the prestigious  Federal Lodge No 1 there.  We will hear of the spread of Scottish Lodges from Appi Appi in Borneo to Jamaica in the West Indies.

4. 'We Met Upon the Level' We confront issues like sectarianism and conspiracy theories regarding Freemasonry and look for possible origins,  and we hear of persecution against Freemasons from Nazi Germany to Stalin’s Russia.  We also learn  from Freemasons about the inclusive nature of the brotherhood, its work for charity and the morality it teaches….all of which means that for many of them, after their families, it plays  the most important role in their lives.

An Odyssey Production for Radio Scotland

The BBC Radio Scotland web site can be accessed by clicking here or on the previous link. There is also a listen again facility that can be linked to from this page to hear the broadcast again for one week only after each broadcast. Alternatively like me you might want to put a tape in you radio/tape recorder! - Ed.