THE FREEMASON AT WORK Harry Carr, rev. by Frederick Smyth, Lewis Masonic, London 2005. Hardback, 405 pages, £19.99. ISBN 0-85318-189-6

Harry Carr is a bit like Ernest Lough. By this I don’t mean that he was a great boy soprano but that the body of work that he has bequeathed to us is so good that it is all too easy to ‘take it as read’ rather than actually taking it down and reading it, regularly. Dusting off and dipping into this book, now in the third reprint of its seventh edition, will lead, for many, to the rediscovery of something very special and quite splendid, just like listening to one of those lovely old recordings from the Temple Church. For those who have yet to take the plunge, a rare treat awaits: reading this book is the perfect way to achieve that daily advancement in masonic knowledge that all Freemasons promise to make but few ever manage to do – and it’s fun! Speaking as a lodge secretary, I would go so far as to say that this volume deserves a place on the table beside the Book of Constitutions which, in many instances, it manages to elucidate via the author’s incomparable combination of scholarship and wit. In this volume it is possible to discover just about everything you ever wanted to know about the Craft, both in theory and in practice, but were perhaps afraid to ask.
    It is written in plain English – no Da Vinci Code here – but also in good English, which quality alone constitutes a strong recommendation these days. Herein you will find guidance on the correct form of address to initiates of military rank and/or noble title; whether the strings of an Entered Apprentice’s apron should be tied in front or behind; the correct procedure for after-proceedings; the origin of the word skirret; the correct passages at which the Volume of the Sacred Law should be opened. In all, two hundred and one questions are answered; of particular interest to the reviewer was number 32, Lewis; Lewises and the ‘Tenue-Blanche.’ There is nothing trivial in this book and nothing pompous, it is all sincerity. The first edition was published in 1976 and this, the seventh, has been most elegantly and unobtrusively revised by Frederick Smyth who, one learns from his very modest Editor’s Note, worked with the author on the original version. I venture to suggest that Harry Carr’s The Freemason at Work would make the perfect present for a new-made Master Mason from his proposed and seconder.
    Andrew Montgomery