Welcoming our new Grand Master for 2025-26

Updated: 24 Jun 2025

At our Annual Movable Conference (AMC) in May, South London Oddfellows’ John Mann was introduced as the Grand Master (Chairman) of the Society for the next 12 months.

The Oddfellows' new Grand Master John Mann at AMC in May 2025

Born in Camberwell in 1951, John is a lifelong member of the South London District of the Oddfellows. We sat down for a chat to find out a little more about him.

Q. Firstly, before we talk about the Oddfellows, we want to know about you. Tell us about your life growing up.

A. That's a question everybody hates. You never think about who you are.

We were a typical working class family. A big family. My dad's side, he was one of six.

Dad worked on the railway, often working 80-odd hours a week for a pittance, really. He worked all the hours that God gave to make sure his kids had a better life than he did. And he succeeded. Mum initially didn't work at all but she had to go to work, eventually, as more brothers and a sister turned up.

There was never any excess money but whatever money was available Mum and Dad always made sure that Christmas happened, and that we had a holiday. My favourite place to go to was on the Isle of Wight. We’d book two weeks on the same farm every year, where me, my brothers and sister, would help to bring in the cows for milking and help to look after and feed the pigs. It was brilliant. That was until one year, my brother Keith, who's no longer with us sadly, decided to take a short cut and walk across what he thought was a hard surface, but it was the top of the slurry pit. He fell in, and stunk for the rest of the holiday!

John with his parents

Q. What about school?

A. I was the lucky one. I passed my 11 plus and went to Wilson's Grammar School, which at the time was the oldest grammar school in London, founded in the time of Queen Elizabeth I. 

I was a member of the Combined Cadet Forces, the CCF as they called it. I was also a member of the school shooting team, using .22 rifles. We did live ammo shooting on the army firing ranges at Gravesend with Lee-Enfield rifles, and on our school firing range with the .22’s. I was classified as a marksman in both so I suppose I would’ve been classified as a sniper.

We had both Army and RAF sections, and because I always wanted to fly, I joined the RAF section. I got my gliding licence at 16, and was awarded my RAF flying scholarship and got my flying licence at 17. I should have kept it going but the amount it cost at that time to keep the flying licence going was prohibitive. Also at that time, I wanted to be an airline pilot but I didn’t pass the BOAC exam. I really should have joined the RAF but I was devastated, so I didn't. I just went off and joined the GLC (Greater London Council).

John as a boy in his Cubs uniform – the 16th Bermondsey Cub Scouts

Q. You’ve had an interesting and varied career, haven’t you?

A. GLC was my first real job but prior to that I did weekend work. I worked down the market on the stalls from the age of 13 to 27. I loved it.

We sold menswear. Levi jeans, Brutus jeans and trousers, Ben Sherman shirts. The chap me and my brothers worked for at one point was one of the main suppliers of Ben Sherman shirts in London. It was manic.

At the age of 19 I went to work for the GLC. I was on £20 a week, which was more than my Dad earned. I started off in the finance section dealing with mortgages. I enjoyed that because I was helping people that couldn't get a mortgage anywhere else. The GLC would, however, give them up to a 100% mortgage which helped people get on to the first rung of the property ladder. 

I also worked as a ticket office manager for Stockport County and Sale Sharks, which was great because I went to Wembley with Stockport County when they got promoted and I got to run Wembley ticket office for a day. I also went to Twickenham with Sale Sharks when they became Premiership Champions and very nearly ended up on the pitch! Before every Premiership Championship Final game, they get the mascots out to have a game of rugby on the pitch in their uniforms. Our mascot got stuck in traffic and was nowhere to be seen, so they said ‘John you can do it’. I went down to the changing room but luckily enough, he turned up and took over, which was good because I wasn't really looking forward to it. Some of those blokes knew how to play rugby and I didn’t!

I also worked for the Oddfellows for about four or five years in Fountain Street before working for Stockport County. After 13 happy years living and working in Stockport and Manchester, I moved back down south to Braintree and amongst other things, I became a cabbie for a while. That was fun. I enjoyed that. My main job was ferrying people with special needs around to their various schools and jobs. They were so much fun, regularly playing tricks on me and having sing songs in the minibus. My boss then said, ‘well, if you're doing that, and you want to earn a bit extra, you might as well carry on during the day and do little bits around the town. So, I was also doing normal cabbying, which was good, but wasn't quite so much fun, although I did get to meet some interesting people.

Q. Anyone interesting in the cab? Anyone famous? 

A. No, not really, but I did used to live next to Glenn Hoddle. He was my best mate for quite a few years. We used to go out together for drinks and the odd meal with our wives.

I also met the Queen and have been invited to Buckingham Palace. Oh yeah, that’s somewhere else I’ve worked – the British Olympic Association (BOA). After the Olympics, the Queen always invited all the Olympic athletes, and members of the BOA to Buckingham Palace and because I worked for them, I was invited as well.

John's invitation to Buckingham Palace from Queen Elizabeth II

Q. Let’s move on to your life with the Oddfellows. How did you first get involved?

A. My Dad was a staunch Oddfellow, and very proud of being an Oddfellow. 

He joined, along with my mum, what was really a railway-based Lodge, and they made all of us – myself, my three brothers and my sister – members within a year of being born.

When we were old enough, we’d take part in the Oddfellows’ sports days at Charlton Park. They were fantastic. A great day out. I also vividly remember going to the 150th anniversary celebrations in the Albert Hall, which was run by all the London Districts with the Grand Master in attendance, plus all the Christmas parties we attended, especially meeting Father Christmas, which nine times out of 10 was my Dad dressed up.

But I didn’t really get involved until I was welcomed into the main Lodge at 16. That’s when it came home to me what Oddfellowship was about. Me and my brother Peter worked our way up through the Lodge chairs, all the while enjoying the hospitality of our local pub!

I did what I like to call the Oddfellows journey, and if you talk to any of the older Oddfellows like me, you will probably hear the same thing. Quite often we joined at 16 and got involved in the Lodge. We went through the chairs, did our degrees, and then girls came on the scene. Then we got engaged, got married, and moved away. You're not involved in a Lodge then for years because you've got your own family to look after. You've got this and that to do, which seems to take priority. Then about the age of 40 you come back in to Oddfellowship because the kids are leaving home.

So, I came back aged 40 or 45 and got involved, started going to Lodge on a more regular basis, getting more involved in the debates, being on the Branch Committee of Management, then a Branch Trustee, then onto the District Committee of Management, District Trustee and eventually Provincial Grand Master of the District. When I moved up to Stockport in 2001, I became an honorary member of Combermere Lodge, as it was, and became the Lodge Secretary and eventually Provincial Grand Master of the Stockport District. However, even though I was an honorary member of Combermere, I always kept up my Pride of Bermondsey membership as that was my main Lodge.

As a family, we've never been far away from Oddfellowship. It's always been there for us, and helped us when we needed it.

(L to R) John's brother Peter, his sister Gill, John and his mother Olive

Q. At what point did you think that you might like to become Grand Master?

A. I was part of the South London committee who saw two members of our District become Grand Masters. Brother Harold F Buckingham in 1993-1994, and Brother Roger Burley in 1996-1997. As I’d known Roger since I was about 16 or 17, I talked to him about what it was all about, what he did on the Board, and things like that, and that ignited the spark in me. I never really thought I'd get there, but always thought I'd like to do it. 

It's only about five years ago that I started talking to my District and I said, ‘I’d like a go’, and they said, ‘alright, we’ll nominate you’. So they were, and still are, fully behind me and it was only once I got their approval that I put my name forward. I wouldn't have done it without asking them first.

Q. You’d been Deputy for two years so you'd known for a while that you were going to become Grand Master, but how did you feel at AMC this year when you finally had it confirmed?

A. Even though you know it’s going to happen, and you've got in your mind, ‘right, this is what I'm going to say, I’m going to say something really clever’, the minute it happens, all of that goes not only out of your mind, but also completely out of the building! Everything I thought I was going to say went out the window. 

I had to take a few seconds. They sat me in the chair. I looked down and there was my sister beaming. There was also all my District deputies there clapping and beaming and I just thought of Mum and Dad and I started welling up. If they had been there they both would have been so proud! 

My sister came up on the stage to give me a little presentation and whispered in my ear, ‘Mum and Dad would be so proud’, and that was it. We both went at that point.

One of my fellow Directors came up to me afterwards to say that was great, because that’s not what normally happens. He said, ‘we could see from the look on your face and your sister's face what it meant to the pair of you’. And it did.

Q. What do you think is the most important issue facing the Society? Or is there a certain cause you'd like to champion as Grand Master? 

A. We’re getting members hand over fist at the moment, which is great. It's wonderful. But we've got to get members who are interested in the running of Oddfellowship, and who want to be members of Committees of Management.

We've got to get the members we're taking on board now interested in our history and hopefully interested in what we have to offer society. But they're not going to know unless we go out of our way to try and teach them, and I think that once you get people curious and asking questions about Oddfellowship, you've done it, you've cracked it.

For various personal reasons, if any money is collected at any function and it's offered to me, I will ask for it to go towards Cancer Research. 

John surrounded by his family on a recent trip to Disney Land

Q. What's the biggest thing that the Oddfellows can offer someone?

A. Well, the biggest thing is friendship. It literally is. I know it’s our strapline: ‘making friends, helping people’. But it is friendship.

I've got friends through Oddfellowship that I’ve had for 50, 60 years. And they are friends, staunch friends. Not just because of Oddfellowship, not just because we see each other every month, they are real friends.

We also help people in distress. Some of the benefits are incidental, but the ones that help people when they're really in distress, that's the real help. 

That goes to the core of what Oddfellowship is all about. Looking after our members. That was what those original ‘odd fellows’ did all those years ago, and we're still doing that over 200 odd years later.

Q. Is there anything that you’d like to add?

I just want to thank everyone for their help, for their encouragement, for their guidance. Both at Board level and District and Branch level.

I'll work hard to try to make sure that I make a success of it.

Thank you.