In a historic occasion for our company, Jane Anderson will be the Fruiterers’ first female Master on 25 January. It will be all change ahead as Peter Cooper, our honorary archivist, tells me that very few women have been Fruiterers, so I wish Jane a wonderful year and perfect weather on St Paul’s Day - known for indicating how the weather for the rest of the year will turn out.

This means that this will be my last piece for FPJ and I thank the staff at Market Towers for their support. It has been a tremendous honour to have been Master and to have been given the chance to see and do things that I would never have done.

The livery is a living part of the City of London. The 108 liveries represent a fairly complete cross-section of business, trade and professions, and support the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of London and give £40 million every year to education, research and many other charitable organisations.

Once a month one of our past Masters, Ivor Robins, goes round Spitalfields Market after the peak buying has taken place and buys fruit as a gift for four London hostels. I went with Ivor to a Salvation Army hostel, near Victoria Station, where 100 homeless men are housed. Residents stay for a maximum of two years and the Salvation Army provides respite and assistance for these men while they try to sort out their lives.

Another charity the Fruiterers have helped is the Row2Recovery team. This charity, which helps rehabilitate injured British servicemen and women, has received a lot of publicity recently for their remarkable voyage in an open boat rowing across the Atlantic. Four of the six-man team have suffered appalling injuries as servicemen, but they are demonstrating what is possible for others who have to cope with similar problems. One of the four, Lt Will Dixon, was a guest at one of our recent dinners. The company has supported this amazing fundraising effort and encourages others to join them.

On a broader scale Fruiterers provide funding for fruit research, travel bursaries and Nuffield scholarships. We support trade shows, while our awards council has the responsibility of deciding where best to spend our funds.

We continue to build our links with the cider industry, while also attracting new grower members from top-fruit, soft-fruit and stonefruit industries, as well as from educationists, wholesalers, marketers and representatives from the chemical companies and so on. The Fruiterers also organise trips every year.

And, of course, during the course of the calendar year the Fruiterers have four main dinners - The Banquet at the Mansion House, in the company of the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress, as well as at the Vintners, Drapers and Barber-Surgeons’ Halls, which have been great fun.

As Master I have been overwhelmed by the support that I have been given by our liverymen and their wives or partners. We have had an excellent turnout from all our members at livery functions and there has been a generous response to an appeal to raise more annual income to support our charities.

And the Fruiterers have much to look forward to, with St Paul’s Day on its way followed by our annual banquet and the City Food Lecture on 15 February at the Guildhall with guest speaker Justin King, CEO of Sainsbury’s. -

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