In the last two days, I have been to two masonic events to listen to two talks.

On Friday evening I attended Wrexhamian Chapter in Wrexham where I heard a talk on the Gresford Disaster from someone who worked at Gresford Mine many years after the event, and has spent years helping to spread the story of the disaster, and assist with the museum. 

For those who have never heard of it, The Gresford disaster occurred on 22 September 1934 at Gresford Colliery, near Wrexham, when an explosion and underground fire killed 261 men. Gresford is one of Britain’s worst coal mining disasters: a controversial inquiry into the disaster did not conclusively identify a cause, though evidence suggested that failures in safety procedures and poor mine management were contributory factors. Further public controversy was caused by the decision to seal the colliery’s damaged sections permanently, meaning that the bodies of only 8 of the miners were ever recovered. Two of the three rescue men who died were brought out leaving the third body in situ until recovery operations began the following year.

On Saturday morning I visited Old Ruthinian Lodge in Ruthin where I heard a talk entitled “The Death of an Admiral” from W. Bro. Michael Crumplin. 

This talk was all about Doctors and Surgeons in the time of the Napoleonic wars, and Lord Nelson (the mentioned Admiral). The speaker was a retired Surgeon and an expert in the subject, having written several books and was the advisor on the film “Master and Commander”. It was very informative and everyone there said they could have keep listening for hours more.  We also only had one person who was a bit upset by some of the graphic medical pictures and drawings that were on the slides. And everyone loved the actual old surgical tools that were brought for us to look at.