‘I come home from work and I’m straight into Masonic work’

After developing an interest in Freemasonry while working in London, Phil Falla has ended up becoming the latest Guernsey resident to become the head of the Provincial Grand Lodge of Guernsey and Alderney.

He took over from the former incumbent Keith Read when a senior member of the United Grand Lodge of England, Sir David Wootton, came to the island to officiate at the relevant ceremonies.

Phil said his interest started while he was a police officer in London and he recalled seeing lots of smartly dressed men carrying briefcases going to meeting halls.

He started looking into it, in particular asking fellow officers if they were involved – the result of a common misconception: ‘I thought, and this is a common misbelief, that there were lots of police officers who were Freemasons. As it happens, there weren’t.

‘All the people that I thought were Freemasons in the police I approached and they said “No, I’m not a Freemason”.’

His research also looked into the nature of the organisation and in particular its rituals: ‘I wanted to make sure that there was nothing in those rituals which would be incompatible with my position as a police officer,’ he said.

He moved back to Guernsey in 1987 but it was not until 1996 that he joined the local lodge, having wanted to take his sergeant’s and then inspector’s exams first: ‘I didn’t want people to think that I got to be a police inspector by virtue of being a Freemason. I did it the other way around. And I also did some research to make sure there was nothing contrary to my sworn duties as a police officer.’

In fact, he said he discovered that everything in Freemasonry revolves around duty – to the King, the law and to being a good citizen and helping people in times of need, both masons and non-masons.

Once he joined he really enjoyed it and so threw himself into learning as much as he could, and so progressed up the ranks, or degrees.

‘There is a bit of learning involved,’ he said. ‘But those people who enjoy what they’re doing actually find it easy to learn some of the ritual – they’re moral plays, in effect.’

His new role involves officiating at a couple of ceremonies a year but also a great deal of administration.

‘I come home from work and I’m straight into Masonic work,’ he said.

‘You’re answering all these emails that build up during the course of the day, about how we run the province, revising the constitution, the rules and regulations for the province, if we have any queries about candidates and so on.’

Locally there has been something of a boom in recruitment in the last couple of years. As of the end of 2024 there were 530 members but there have been many more since, with more still in the pipeline.

Any man can become a Freemason, said Phil, and all they had to do was express an interest to an existing member and ask to find out more.

Not too many years ago there was a perception that the Freemasons were secretive to an unsavoury degree. The reason for that dated back to the 1940s, he said.

Prior to the Second World War, Freemasonry had been quite public, but in Guernsey and anywhere else that was subject to Hitler’s governance the persecution of Freemasons drove them underground.

After the war, that secrecy continued: ‘I suppose lots of people didn’t know whether the Germans were going to come back,’ he said. ‘So there was that fear.

‘What we do know is actually, during the Occupation, there were a lot of Germans here who were Freemasons themselves, but obviously didn’t declare it publicly. But when they met people who they knew were Freemasons here they would have convivial conversations and have something in common.’

Later on, there was the Cold War. ‘There was lots of secrecy and spying going on, and unfortunately, Freemasonry got wrapped up in that. The problem is, wherever you’ve got people who don’t declare that they’re Freemasons it’s easy to accuse it of being secret, which it’s not.’