July\'s incessant rain and the resulting flooding prevented Brian Morgan, the President of the National Association of Memorial Masons (NAMM), from being able to reach the House of Commons for the Association\'s centenary reception.

Brian, whose business, Mosfords, is in Cardiff, was stranded at Bristol railway station from 2pm until 7.30pm before giving up the attempt to get to London. Others from the West Country and the Midlands were also prevented from attending because flooding disrupted both the roads and railways.

Nevertheless, 120 NAMM members and funeral director and cemetery authority guests did make it and former president Jenny Gregson stepped in to deliver some of Brian\'s speech.

Mike Dewar from the Memorial Awareness Board said a few words about the growing significance of NAMM over the years.

Mike praised NAMM for the introduction of the British Register of Accredited Memorial Masons (BRAMM) that was increasingly being adopted by burial authorities. "It\'s a brilliant idea," he said, that was improving the standards of memorial fixing in cemeteries.

He was pleased to see so many stories about memorials in the press these days. "We used to creep around in the shadows a bit. Now we\'re proud of ourselves," he said.

Ian Hussein from the burial authorities\' organisation ICCM responded on behalf of NAMM\'s guests, saying how he had grown to respect NAMM and how NAMM and ICCM had grown ever closer together.

One mistake NAMM had made, according to Ian, was changing the word \'master\' to \'memorial\' in its name, which used to be National Association of Master Masons. "I think you should consider reinstating it," he told them.

Terry Sarsfield from Liver-pool, who was president of NAMM 35 years ago, was invited along to give his reflections on the changes he had witnessed in NAMM and the industry in general.

He said when he was president, NAMM did not have any full-time employees, just a part-time secretary. Neither did they seek headlines, preferring quiet words behind the scenes.

He also felt memorial masons had respected the cemetery regulations more 35 years ago, obeying them because they were there without the need for policing. He said the easiest way for masons to help burial authorities would be to return to that culture.