Scoring three centuries: the Carmen celebrate
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• In London's Guildhall last week the Worshipful Company of Carmen celebrated its 300th anniversary with a banquet at which the Duke of Edinburgh was principal guest and proposed "the Company ".
In his reply, the Master, Mr. G. W. Quick Smith, stressed the importance of transport as epitomized by the ancient Company and spoke of the essential part which carmen had played in the life of the City. Mr. Quick Smith emphasized that while we should revere the past we must not live in it. "The transport industry must beware of entering the last decades of this century with a carthorse mentality which is unbefitting to the jet age." While revering traditional institutions, said the Master, we must not allow ourselves to be sealed up within them but use them as springboards for greater endeavours.
The 300th anniversary provided the Company with the opportunity of a very special spring-clean, he said. While the social and fraternal aspects of the Company were part of the fabric of the good society, an organization which was to flourish had to be constantly invigorated with new blood and new ideas and its basic objectives must be relentlessly pursued in new and better ways.
Tradition, said Mr. Quick Smith, was a mechanism which enabled each generation to start where the previous one left off. It was important to help the younger generation to see, by example, that tradition was not an abstract thing, but something alive and meaningful which, for instance, governed the integrity of the day-to-day dealings with one. another for which the City was renowned.
To be effective and to do all that the Carmen's Company ought to be doing by way of benevolence for the needy, education of the young and advancement in the science of transport, there must be a firm financial foundation. For this reason an appeals committee had been formed under the chairmanship of Mr. Jack Cohen, a member of the Carmen's court.
The Master hoped that, with the added inspiration which His Royal Highness brought to this historic year, the Company would march forward with the understanding and support of the younger generation which would inherit their privileges and responsibilities.