Freemason celebrates 50 years as a brother.

Last night, Thursday February 23, the Assistant Provincial Grand Master of the Cumbria Freemasons, Keith Beaumont visited Ambleside Lodge, to celebrate Roger Mallinson MBE spend his 50th year in freemasonry.

Roger joined the Masonic lodge at Windermere, on February 8, 1973, at the age of 35 years old.

Roger started off as an apprentice at Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness, and has been obsessed with machinery ever since.

Roger has lived an amazing life, in 1973, he was working in a submarine in the sea, 150 miles off the coast of Ireland, when an accident happened and it plunged 1600ft to the sea bed.

Roger was trapped for over 3 days in the 6ft submarine,  on the seabed ,the incident was considered the deepest submarine rescue in history, and made headlines at the time, but has since largely been forgotten about since.

In his spare time, Roger pursued many other engineering projects, he became interested in musical organs and started to build them, then learned to play.

Roger is most famous for his work on steam engines, and boats, his passion was restoring and building them from scratch, every single part made by his own hands.

He rescued 'Shamrock', a gentleman's steam launch that had fallen into disrepair, and built a new double-acting engine for it.

This boat is now looked after by a trust Roger set up by, and is still a regular sight on Windermere.

Roger Mallinson MBE is a truly inspirational man and a great example of a Freemason.

Neil Dixon, spokesperson for Cumbria Freemasons said: “ We would all like to congratulate Roger on his amazing achievement. Roger has led an amazing life in the local community and we are very proud that he’s been a member for so long.

“Roger shows the true values of a freemason- Respect, integrity, friendship and charity and shows the true values in the local community.

“He is a well know member of the community and his engineering skills are phenomenal, this is a well-deserved recognition for the amazing work that he does.”