In they file — the provincial grand masters, the grand stewards and the right worshipful brethren — out of the December cold, down the marbled antechambers into the Grand Temple. Freemasons, we are told, come from all walks of life but here, in Freemasons’ Hall in central London, as they take their places for one of the year’s big masonic set pieces, they mostly look the same — not just because they all wear dark suits, garish sashes, mayoral chains and prissy little aprons, but because, although occasionally there may be a neat beard, a black face, a turban even, mainly, mainly what you see is white skin and grey hair, and often no hair at all.

After years of decline, the masons are on