Testimonials

Six longer voices — a widow, a foodbank coordinator, a parish priest, a past master, an organist, and a community-garden volunteer.

The shorter testimonials on the homepage are an introduction; the longer pieces below are what those people went on to say when we asked if they would write a paragraph or two more. Each is published with their consent and reviewed annually. Names of confidential beneficiaries are first-name only at their request.

A small bundle of handwritten thank-you cards on a kitchen table — the kind a benevolent fund accumulates over a few decades, tied with a length of string.

A portrait of Margaret, a woman in her late seventies with white hair, soft lamp-light on her kitchen table, half-empty cup of tea, a knitting bag beside her.

"The Trustees rang on a Tuesday and the envelope arrived on the Friday. There was a hand-written note inside it, signed by both of them, neither of whom I had met since Tom's funeral. I have kept the note in the drawer with my pension book. It is the kindest thing I have received since Tom died — and what mattered, I think, was not the cheque so much as the fact that someone had taken the trouble of finding the right words. Tom would have approved of that."

Margaret, 78

Ashtead · widow of Past Master Thomas, supported through The Widows' Hand since 2014

A portrait of Roger, a man in his early sixties wearing a navy fleece, in the doorway of the Methodist church hall in Leatherhead where the foodbank operates, low morning light falling on a stack of cardboard boxes behind him.

"It is the same envelope each spring — small, but the timing of it is uncanny. The Astede Brothers seem to know that we will be short of tins again by Easter. We have had a cheque every March from them since I joined the foodbank in 2018, and the same letter every April from their Trustees asking what we did with it. They are the only donor who writes us a second letter in April. We always reply."

Roger, 62

Leatherhead Foodbank · Coordinator since 2018

A portrait of the Reverend David, a man in his mid sixties in a black clerical shirt, standing in the porch of St Giles Ashtead, soft autumn light through the lych-gate behind him.

"They never write of themselves and they never ask for thanks. Once a year, an envelope with a cheque, and a single sheet of paper: 'For the parish heating fund — with the Brothers' compliments.' That is the whole of it. They turn up at the harvest service in lay clothes, sit at the back, and slip out before the coffee. I have been Vicar here for thirteen years and I have never had a conversation with either Trustee that was about anything other than the practical question of who needed help that month. It is, in its quiet way, an example to all of us."

The Reverend David, 64

Vicar, Parish of Ashtead St Giles · partner since 2011

A portrait of Philip, a man in his early seventies with a closely trimmed grey beard, in shirt-sleeves at a hall window, a Lodge apron and white gloves folded on the chair beside him.

"I was sworn in as Almoner in 1996 — I served until 2002, came back to it in 2018 — and the box looked the same then as it does now. A tin biscuit box with our name on a sticky label. It still holds the cheque book, the cash float, and a few thank-you cards we have kept. People sometimes assume that Lodge work is mostly ceremony. It isn't. The Almoner's box is the work."

Philip, 71

Bookham · Past Master & current Lodge Almoner

A portrait of Helen, a woman in her late fifties in a long cardigan, seated at the organ console of a small parish church, sheet music open in front of her, low light through the stained glass.

"My husband was a Brother of Astede until he died in 2016. The Brothers sent the most extraordinary kind cheque in the December after — small in money terms, but it arrived with a copy of the order of service from Tom's funeral which they had kept and read again that month. I have been the organist at St Mary's for twenty-two years and they have asked me to play at the December open evening every year since. They do not pay for it; I would not let them. But they always send a tin of biscuits."

Helen, 59

Fetcham · organist, St Mary's · widow of a former Brother

A portrait of Saul, a man in his mid thirties in a checked work-shirt, in a community garden polytunnel with autumn vegetables behind him, soft late-afternoon light.

"We are a small garden — we feed maybe forty families a year through the parish food parcels. The £30 from the Astede Brothers in 2019 helped us put up our first proper shed. The £30 they sent in 2022 paid for the polytunnel patch after the gale that February. I have never been to the Lodge but I have met both Trustees at the coffee morning — they were the ones in the corner stacking the chairs at the close. We sent them photographs of the shed and the patched polytunnel; they wrote back to say thank-you for the photographs."

Saul, 36

Bookham · volunteer co-ordinator, Bookham Community Garden

A note on how we collect testimonials

We do not pay for testimonials, we do not draft them in-house, and we have not edited a single word of the six above. Each was written by the named person — except Roger, who dictated his over the phone to the Lodge Secretary, who typed it up and sent it back to him for approval — and each is reviewed in March of every year for permission to keep it on the website. If, at any review, a contributor would like a piece removed or amended, we remove or amend it within a week.

We do not solicit testimonials from confidential beneficiaries. Margaret's was offered in 2022; she has read it back to herself every spring since. We do not publish testimonials from the Brethren we have helped directly through the Brethren in Need fund — confidentiality matters more to us than evidence ever will.

Your voice, if you have one

If we have helped you — and you would like to say so.

Write to the Lodge Secretary, or sign up to the dispatches, or just come along to the next coffee morning and find us by the urn.

Write to us Find us at the next event