Coachlines - July 2024

27.07.24 The Clerk Cdr Mark Leaning RN

Clerk’s Notes – July 2024 – Out with the old


40 years ago this month I became a trainee Royal Navy helicopter pilot flying the Gazelle HT2 with 705 Naval Air Squadron based at RNAS Culdrose in Cornwall.

The Gazelle was a slippery little beast, highly manoeuvrable but sufficiently challenging to make it an excellent training aircraft for ab initio pilots embarking upon Basic Flying Training; and the Cornish summer of 1984 provided a glorious backdrop for a whole heap of fun.

Sitting in a small helicopter that appears to be primarily made of perspex for the first time as the rotor brake is released and the rotor blades are accelerated to their operating speed is an “interesting experience”. However, after six sorties flown during the month of July learning the mysteries of how to make a helicopter go up and down, fly round corners, speed up and slow down, and most importantly balance on the head of a pin (aka hover), 40 years ago yesterday all these building blocks were brought together in one sortie dedicated to flying circuits, as in circuits to an airfield.

At the time, with my capacity already overloaded by numbers and techniques that seemed counterintuitive to the laws of physics, as a “stude” I didn’t notice it but six years later, as a newly qualified Helicopter Instructor in my own right flying the Maritime Lynx Mk3, I learnt that demonstrating the perfect circuit to a student is one of the most difficult things an instructor is expected to do. Except for the Downwind Fast Stop of course – which happens a lot faster at only 50 ft above ground level and in which it can all go horribly wrong much more quickly.

However, back in 1984 I managed to keep ticking the boxes as sortie after sortie was completed until I had blagged my way through the whole course; and on 29th November 1984 I was awarded my Navy Wings.

Whatever happened to this fit young man?

Company news

Commandant’s Parade – 7th August 2024

The Master invites you to join her to spectate at the Commandant’s Parade at the Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst on Wednesday 7th August 2024. More information on how you can be there can be found here.

Private tour of the Royal Hospital Chelsea – 20th August 2024

Join the Master and fellow Liverymen for a private tour of the Royal Hospital Chelsea, guided by one of the residents, a Chelsea Pensioner. The Royal Hospital, much like the Coachmakers, traces its origins to Charles II and remains an active institution today. Unlike the Coachmakers, the Pensioners remain in their original home, a fantastic 66-acre site, with the principal buildings designed by Sir Christopher Wren. More information on how you can be there can be found here.

Election Court and Installation of the new Master – 2nd September 2024

On 2nd September 2024 the Court will elect and install the new Master. As is tradition, the Election Court meeting to decide the identity of the new Master will again be held at Tallow Chandlers’ Hall, followed by the Installation of the new Master and a Service of Thanksgiving in St James Garlickhythe and Installation Dinner back at Tallow Chandlers Hall. More information on how you can be there can be found here.

City news

Glasgow in London Dinner – 10th September 2024

This annual event showcases the best of the traditional dinners of the Glasgow Trade Incorporations hosted by the Deacon Convener of the Trades of Glasgow, Bruce Reidford. The Principal Guest will be Alderman Alastair King, Court Assistant of the Coachmakers’ Company and Lord Mayor nominate. It is billed as an evening of fun and enjoyment to celebrate the links between the Glasgow Incorporations, the London Livery Companies and other City institutions. Should you wish to attend, follow this link to download the booking form.

The London Symphony Orchestra’s Annual City Livery Concert and Reception – 19th September 2024

Honorary Liveryman Alderman Sir Andrew Parmley and Graham Barker, Deputy Master of the Arts Scholars, would like to invite you and your family and associates to the London Symphony Orchestra’s Annual City Livery Concert and Reception.

The repertoire is as follows:
Karol Szymanowski Concert Overture (16 mins)
Frédéric Chopin Piano Concerto No 2 (30 mins)

Interval, with reception drinks

Gustav Mahler Symphony No 1 (57 mins)
Sir Antonio Pappano, conductor
Yuja Wang, piano
London Symphony Orchestra

During the interval, you are warmly invited to attend a reception with your fellow Liverymen and Freemen. Tickets cost £60 per person, or £50 per person for a group booking of 10 or more guests. Please make sure to book your tickets for this event through this link on the LSO website.

Once you have booked your tickets, you will be sent confirmation of your places, but please note that concert tickets will be available for collection on the evening of the concert at the Barbican Centre. Seats will be allocated in the centre circle of the Barbican Hall. Full details about the Annual City Livery Concert and Reception, ticket collection and other important information will be emailed to you closer to the date.
If you have any queries or require assistance, please do not hesitate to contact the LSO either by email at development@lso.co.uk or by phone at +44 20 7382 2572.

Goldsmiths’ Fair 2024
Week One: 24th-29th September | Week Two: 1st-6th October

Every autumn, Goldsmiths’ Fair brings together a curated selection of the UK’s best contemporary jewellers and silversmiths. Each exhibitor has a unique approach to working with precious metals, fusing techniques and inspirations in innovative ways. Together, their work demonstrates the breadth and depth of talent in precious metalwork in the UK today.

For more details follow this link.

Presentation of chains of office and badge to Sheriffs-Elect David Chalk and Gregory Jones KC

It is customary that members of the Livery Companies of London are invited to help support the presentation of the chains and badges of office to the Sheriffs-Elect each year. Full details of this year’s appeals can be found here.

David Chalk appeal

Gregory Jones appeal

Election of the next Lord Mayor of London – 30th September 2024

All Liverymen clothed before 31st May 2023 are eligible to vote in this election; should you require a ticket to ease your passage into the Guildhall please email the Clerk at: clerk@coachmakers.co.uk

Lunch will be available after the ceremony at Tallow Chandlers’ Hall, cost will be circa £72pp inc vat. Should you wish to stay on for lunch, email the Clerk at clerk@coachmakers.co.uk

The Livery Climate Action Group Conference 2024 – 22nd October 2024

This Conference is open to all, and Livery Companies, City businesses, SMEs, faith communities and all interested individuals are welcome.
The event will be held in Merchant Taylors’ Hall starting with a light buffet lunch with networking and stalls. Following the presentations and panel discussions, there will be further opportunities for networking and conversations over drinks and canapes. More details and booking links are here. 

Inter Livery Real Tennis Championship 2024 – 6th November 2024

The annual Inter Livery Real Tennis Competition is to be held at Queen’s Club on Wednesday 6th November 2024. This is a doubles handicap tournament under the auspices of the Tennis & Rackets Association (T&RA). There will be a maximum of 24 pairs split between two competitions. The draft rules can be found here.

The day will start with registration, tea, coffee and pastries, and, after play, will conclude with a drinks reception and a black tie dinner. Masters, Liverymen, Freemen, partners and friends are encouraged to join their teams for the drinks reception and dinner.

You are invited to submit applications, using the button at this link, for pairs of players who are both members of your Company and those who are members of the T&RA. The deadline for applications is 6th September 2024. Should you be unable to find a partner within your own Company, please still submit the application and the organisers will endeavour to match you with a suitable partner if there is space available. Successful applicants will be informed by Friday 13th September and required to make payment by 20th September.

The charge for the day will be £180 (inclusive of VAT) per player entered and includes tennis, marking, welcome teas/coffees/pastries, drinks reception and dinner. Tennis only, without the drinks reception and dinner, will be £65 per person, and for the drinks reception and dinner £135 per person.

Applications for dinner only may be made here.

In conclusion

Returning to the heady days of 1984, immediately after being awarded our Navy Wings and in the run-up to Christmas the RN, in its infinite wisdom, sent No 23 Pilot Flying Training Course to Portsmouth for a three-week Maritime Warfare Course designed to educate young aviators about the principles of sea power. Six of us were full career officers with several years’ sea-going experience already tucked into our sea boots, and the rest were highly strung, direct-entry aspiring Naval Aviators whose only interest in ships was that they knew that it would be a ship to where they returned after the fun bit of their job was concluded for the day. We didn’t take it very seriously but after several months restricted to the rather quiet social life of Helston, to be let loose in Pompey in the run up to Christmas was a real treat.

One interesting moment from the course that stands out however, occurred during a session in the Type 42 Destroyer Operations Room Simulator in what was then HMS Dryad in Southwick Park. We were meant to be manning various positions in the Ops Room to “fight” a sea battle using the computer-generated radar systems designed to simulate the real thing. In reality we were playing Space Invaders with simulated Sea Dart missiles firing at anything that looked like a target, whether friend, foe or simulated by the enemy’s (or our own) deception measures.

Knowing that I should have known better and perhaps done more to calm my two excitable direct-entry colleagues, at one point I looked across the gloom of the darkened Ops Room to see the young Wren who was controlling the software inputs of our bit of the wargame glaring at me with one of those looks that instantly makes you feel guilty. Maintaining a steady icy stare as we expended the Nation’s entire war stock of Sea Dart missiles into a “target” on the screen of our console, she simply said: “That’s CHAFF Sir”. And so our missiles flew straight into a simulated cloud of tinfoil simulating a real contact. Nelson would have been proud.

The rest of the course is but a faded memory but during the next 20 years I remembered that particular moment on five subsequent occasions when my path again crossed that of a young Wren Air Traffic Controller who went on to become a Senior RN Air Traffic Controller with a fearsome reputation for taking no prisoners. Each of those brief moments left me convinced that I really was the prat that she believed me to be.

The Fearsome Controller – Plymouth Military Radar – 1999
Phot courtesy of the MoD

However, in 2004 during what was for me a period of domestic adjustment, our paths crossed under happier circumstances and three years later we were wed.

And eight years ago, Mrs L, aka Lt Cdr Rachel Firth RN, became the Assistant Clerk to the Coachmakers to join me in what has been a fascinating journey. However, all good things come to an end and after 12 years in post, tomorrow I step down as the 28th Clerk to the Coachmakers’ Company and Rachel hands in her Assistant Clerk’s badge of office too.

Those of you who attended the Summer Court Dinner at Saddlers’ Hall on 11th July will have witnessed Lieutenant Colonel Craig Hallatt being sworn in as the 29th Clerk to the Coachmakers’ Company. The Recruiting Committee made an excellent choice and you will very much enjoy working with him. Rachel and I wish him the very best of luck for his future term of office as the Clerk to this ancient Company.

I would also like to thank everyone involved with the Company for their support during the past 12 years. A wise Captain once said to me: “It’s the men that make the ship” – and he wasn’t being misogynistic, it was well before women officially went to sea. However, I believe the same can be said about the members of a Livery Company (men and women) because who they are is what makes a Livery Company what it is, and your support over the years has been extremely kind and much appreciated.

I particularly want to thank the Master, who with the Court’s approval presented me this year’s Master’s Award for service to the Company. As I mentioned at the Summer Court Dinner, my name is now added to the short list of only 13 people thus far who have been similarly recognised, and it is an impressive list of names indeed; I am deeply honoured to join them.

As I also said at Saddlers’ Hall, the role of the Clerk does not involve rocket science but the volume and intensity of work it generates is truly insane and even during the August “quiet period” preparations for the next Livery Year continue apace; which is why it is not a job, it is a way of life. Grasp that concept and it starts to make sense, reject it and everyone is the poorer for it.

For the past 12 years therefore I have worked to support the Master of the day to enact the Court’s wishes on behalf of the Membership to make the Company better and to continue its good works in the City and beyond. During that time, many people have asked me whether I have enjoyed the experience, or stated that I must have enjoyed myself to have stayed so long, but enjoy is too strong a word in this context. I have enjoyed elements of the work, I have enjoyed meeting so many different people along the way and I have welcomed and enjoyed many of the opportunities that have arisen for me as the Clerk to the Coachmakers but it would be inaccurate to say that I have enjoyed everything. What I would say is that I have appreciated every opportunity to become part of the history of the City of London and am proud to have played a small part in influencing how some of that history was made.

Similarly, membership of this City Livery Company makes you all part of the history of the City of London and the more you engage with the opportunities available through that membership, the bigger the part you will play. To embrace that idea, in my view, makes the whole thing more relevant and even more exciting.

But what does the future hold for the former Clerk and Assistant Clerk?

First, we are taking a holiday in Orkney with my son and his family to introduce them to the delights of that very special place; and of course our attention will then turn towards the horses and the motorbikes we have to ride, and the management of some seriously overgrown carbon based lifeforms that need a good haircut, so we shall not be bored, that is for sure.

However, just to add a frisson of variety to our rural existence, those of you who have attended a Coachmaker Banquet in recent years will have recognized that Rachel and I “do a good gig” and having attended the banquets of other Companies in the Guildhall which have not been quite so good we identified a potential niche market that could be a bit of fun to exploit. As a result, a start-up company called Convivium Event Services Ltd will commence trading on 1st August, principally to offer event management support to Livery Companies that want to do a Guildhall Banquet but have not done one in living memory, or find the prospect simply too daunting. And we’ll be doing other stuff as well so don’t be surprised if you see either Rachel or myself lurking in the shadows of the next Coachmaker Livery Dinner. What we won’t be doing is weddings and the like – but if you are ever in need of some event management help, do get in touch.

For now though, once again, thank you for all your support and on behalf of Rachel and myself, all the creatures that see the Old Barn as their home, or simply a feeding station enroute to somewhere else, I wish you and yours a great summer and I wish the Coachmakers’ Company the very best of luck for what I hope will continue to be a long and prosperous future.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It’s goodbye from her – and it’s goodbye from him