Memorial Garden

It is with great pleasure that we report the breaking of ground for a St John Ambulance Garden at the National Memorial Arboretum. It may not be terribly interesting to those confrères outside of the United Kingdom, but it should be a beautiful memorial to the work of the VOSJ and the hospitaller movement in general. The ceremony at which work officially started on the garden took place last week. Currently, it is difficult to make out much of the layout, but we certainly look forward to seeing the promised Maltese cross which is proposed to play a key role in the design. As soon as we have photographs of the garden, we will share them with our readers.

Pro Utilitate Hominum

Bravery in the Pyrenees

Yesterday, the VOSJ's award for bravery was presented to a very deserving young man. Will Close-Ash was given the Orders Life Saving Medal for an incident that occured in June. Mr Close-Ash was leading an expedition in the French mountains when it was discovered that a group of tourists had run into some trouble. Under Close-Ash's leadership, the tourists travelers were successfully rescued, and he is now being awarded the silver Life Saving Medal.

According to the Order's regulations, "the Life Saving Medal may be bestowed on a person who has performed a conspicuous act of bravery; in performing that act has endangered his own life; and has performed that act in saving or attempting to save the life of one or more other persons." The medal was instituted in 1874 and the silver has been awarded less than 200 times since then. With the humility that is often present in true heroes, Mr Close-Ash said, “I’m delighted to receive the medal, but even more pleased that all of the men survived. I’m proud of the work my cadets and staff did on the mountain that day, and without their efforts those men would have died.” Congratulations!

Something Funny

As we are often known to do, we were spending some time in the local library this week. We stumbled on a ridiculous book. It appears to be the work of a conspiracy theory group in the western United States, but it specifically mentions the VOSJ, so we thought we would take a look.

The "book" in question is called Taking Off the Blindfold, by G.C. Hatonn. Essentially, it espouses the theory that the entire world is controlled by a Jewish/Satanist group of which HM Queen Elizabeth II is a part. The following paragraph comes from the section of chapter 1 entitled "Knights of the Order of the Garter:"

The Knights of the Order of the Garter are the leaders of the Committee of 300, Queen Elizabeth II’s most trusted “privy council”. When I did my research on the Order of St. John of Jerusalem some years ago, I went to Oxford to talk with one of the Masters who is a specialist on ancient and modern British traditions. He told me that the Knights of the Garter are the inner sanctum, the elite of the elite of Her Majesty’s Most Venerable Order of St. John of Jerusalem. Let me say this is not the original order founded by the true Christian warrior, Peter Gerard, but is typical of many fine institutions that are taken over and destroyed from the inside, while yet appearing to the uninitiated to be the original.

The next section is entitled "Order of Jerusalem (and a Little Satanism!)" and goes more specifically into the VOSJ. Here, the author states:

I learned from the papers in the museum named after Victoria that she changed the name of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem in 1885 in order to break away from the Catholic connection of the Order’s founder, Peter Gerard, and renamed it the “Protestant Most Venerable Order of Jerusalem.” Membership was open to every oligarchical family that had made its fortune in the China opium trade and every thoroughly decadent family received a place in the ‘new order.’

The next section brings the discussion to Canada discusses "the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, who control Canadian commerce in all of its facets." Now we had a long discussion about this book amongst ourselves. Some of us wanted to make mention of this odd publication and some of us wanted to leave well enough alone. In the end, we decided that the negative consequence of free press for these conspiracy theorists was less than the positive consequence of sharing what a few nuts in Las Vegas think. If we know what misinformation is out there, we can more easily defend ourselves against it...and it was good for a laugh.

Lord Prior Interview

With the installation of a new Lord Prior, the VOSJ has posted a short interview on its webpage. Gemma Mullick, the communications and training coordinator at the Order Secretariat has interviewed Professor Mellows. You can find the interview here. We look forward to seeing what great things Mellows has in store for the VOSJ.

Lord Prior Installed

As we noted a couple of weeks ago, the VOSJ has a new Lord Prior. He was officially installed yesterday as the new leader of the Order. It was a wonderful ceremony at Clerkenwell filled with many knights and dames all wearing their black mantles. Lord Prior Mellows asked members of the VOSJ worldwide to remember the roots of the Order. The originally knights hospitaller were founded in 1099 with a simple directive, to "serve, our lords, the sick." This is a very nice sentiment as he begins his tenure as Lord Prior.

New Lord Prior

It may have passed some by, but the VOSJ now has a new Lord Prior. On 5 June of this year, Eric Barry (the outgoing LP) and Anthony Mellows (the incoming LP) paid a visit to Kensington palace to be received by The Duke of Gloucester, our Grand Prior. The Englishman Mellows was assuming the appointment and the Canadian Barry was relinquishing it.

Just last week (28 October) HM the Queen, Sovereign Head of the VOSJ, received Professor Anthony Mellows upon his appointment as Lord Prior. Mellows has serviced as Vice Lord Prior for several years and seems to be sliding into his new role quite comfortable. We were able to find a photograph of the new Lord Prior in our extensive library. It was taken at the St John Eye Hospital's service of celebration and thanksgiving for the Order in May 2007. This was part of the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the hospital. The official installation will take place later this month, and we'll certainly keep you posted.