The sign, the handshake and the steps: inside the world of the Freemasons, 1967

Boaz – what did it mean? Illustration: unknown credit/The Observer

The cover of the Observer Magazine of 18 June 1967 featured the ‘secret word known to one million men in Britain’ – Boaz. Though quite how something that about one in 20 men knew was a secret is more of a mystery.

There was ‘a fixed rule against discussing religion in the lodge'