Six years ago in 1987 Fr Edmund was at St Mary's Warrington acting as assistant priest. He was already eighty one and in the previous ten years since retiring from Leyland as parish priest it had been expected that he would become less and less active; but he wasn't made like that. He was always on the go around the parish and especially at the hospital. It was at that point that the Abbot President made him Cathedral Prior of Chester. This final honour was not for him a final decoration for him to sit back and enjoy in passivity. It was typical of him that he received it with zest and enthusiasm for the ecumenical opening it afforded him through the generous welcome given him by the Dean and Chapter. He broke new ground, as he had often done in the past.
Fr Edmund was born in Garston, Liverpool on 24 February 1906 in our parish at Grassendale. He was educated at St Edward's College and then went to Ampleforth, where he received the Benedictine habit in 1925. He was ordained in 1932 and started his first work as assistant to the Procurator, first under Fr Bede Turner and then from 1935 under Fr Joseph Smith. The Procurator's Office at that time consisted of a single room just south of the archway in which all the accounting was done by hand. That didn't succeed in tying Fr Edmund down. He became a familiar figure to everyone, known well to all the boys and staff. He was there in every crisis and wherever there was a need to be met. And he was known especially because of his irrepressible energy, his unforgettable cheerfulness and his determination to approach all the problems and tiresome demands made on a Procurator with unfailing kindness and concern. He brought a new spirit into administration and it looked as though he was set for a long term of service in the Office at Ampleforth. However that changed in 1939.
In 1936 the Abbey had responded to an appeal from Cardinal Hinsley for the provision of accommodation for young Catholics seeking work in London. Four properties were rented in St Stephen's Square Bayswater and the Ampleforth Hostel was opened in February 1937 under Fr Philip Egerton as Warden. Fr Edmund had much to do with the fitting out of the property and when a new Warden was needed in 1939 he was sent to London in March 1939. He had hardly got going when it was necessary to close the Hostel down at the outbreak of war. Fr Edmund did all that was necessary with the greatest efficiency and then in March 1940 moved to St Anne's Liverpool to start the pastoral life on the parishes which was to be his vocation for the next fifty three years.
At St Anne's during the next ten years he worked as curate. He was well known and well-loved by all the parishioners. He became particularly well-known locally when during the blitz on Liverpool the Press reported lavishly (and with an exaggeration he repudiated) a wonderfud escape he had when a land-mine fell on St Anne's boys' school in March 1941. Fr Edmund himself wrote his own report to the Abbot as a corrective to Press stories. He began his description of what happened by saying: 'As far as I am concerned it's very simple - I was the subject of a first class miracle.'
In a terrible night of intense bombing around one o'clock in the morning a land mine went through the roof of St Anne's boys' school across the road from the Church and Presbytery. It didn't explode immediately. The wardens began to clear the area. The priests came out and helped. They got people who were in the shelter under the boys' school into another shelter and then took cover themselves - all except Fr Edmund, who seems to have forgotten that his method of getting others out of danger left him still in it. He had been helping the wardens and stopped to talk to a policeman outside the school.
'I turned to cross the road and then I saw the School walls bulge (it was bright moonlight). Seeing that bulge saved me. I turned round and fell flat. I suppose it was only a split second but it gave me time to get down. Then it went off (perhaps I was helped down by the blast - I really don't know)... They say you can't pray on these occasions, but I did. I made a good, if rapid, act of contrition. I thought I was finished... I should think I was on my feet again within thirty seconds of the explosion. I didn't even feel shaken. There was a thick cloud of dust over the whole place, just like a thick fog. I went over to the school. There wasn't a brick standing... I think I can write this down as the most grim moment of my life. I thought the three Fathers were under that heap... There wasn't another living being in sight. I felt the end of my world had come... The policeman to whom I had been talking was killed and a man at the opposite side of the street.
That was Fr Edmund's experience of a close encounter with a land-mine. On the testimony of one of the other priests 'houses were blasted and badly damaged as far as four hundred yards away'. And Fr Edmund across the road from the explosion got up after thirty seconds and 'didn't even feel shaken'. Instead, as his account goes on: 'After a minute or so three rescue workers arrived and I helped them to dig out three poor people who had been caught just in front of the school (or perhaps they were blown out of it).' So he went on working and helping. That hideous experience did not deter Fr Edmund or make him think he needed a rest or a break or a quieter job. He just carried on at St Anne's through the rest of the war. He became involved in broader diocesan work and in 1943 he became a member of the Notre Dame Child Guidance Clinic. Eventually in 1950 he was moved to St Alban's Warrington as Assistant and then, in 1952 was made Parish Priest of Leyland in succession to Fr Anselm Parker [in fact Fr Dominic Allen].
Leyland was growing and changing and almost at once Fr Edmund threw himself into the development of a fairly small parish into a very large one. This involved a new Church on a new site. It involved also formidable schemes for fund raising to pay for all the new development. He ran his own football pool - one of the first and from need became such an expert in fund raising that it became too much of a burden. He remained always cheerful and energetic but the preoccupation with the enormous load of building and fund-raising may for the time have robbed him of some of the freshness of his relationship with the people. But he was successful and by 1964 he was able to hold the solemn opening and consecration of the new Church which was his pride and joy. It was in the same year, 1964, that he became a Founder Member of the Liverpool Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission.
He had commissioned Arthur Dooley to make the remarkable and very successful Stations of the Cross for Leyland after failing in an attempt to get Henry Moore. He brought Arthur to Ampleforth for a visit which caused much nervousness in anticipation, but in the event it went very well. Fr Edmund was like a diminutive lion-tamer leading a huge and wondering Arthur round the Monastery, Church and School. Everyone was apprehensive except Fr Edmund. But no one's head was bitten off. Arthur thought so much of Fr Edmund that we were all quite safe really and he was gentle with those he might so easily have savaged. He even let us have the familiar figure of a faceless Roman soldier as a memento, after explaining in his Liverpool docker's accent that he gave the soldier a face to start with but then filed it off 'because those bastards hadn't any personality'. Later in 1970 Fr Edmund was involved in a Television 'This is your Life' programme on Arthur Dooley. Their relationship was quite exceptional with deep strands running through it. In Fr Edmund it was an outstanding example of his power to empathise with people far removed from his experience; for Arthur Dooley it involved an awakening which is eloquently embodied in those unforgettable Stations of the Cross.
The Church was, however, only one of Fr Edmund's bequests to the parish... Between 1954 and his retirement in 1978 he opened five new schools in Leyland: a Nursery School, an Infants' School, two Primary Schools and a High School. In addition to all his responsibilities at Leyland Fr Edmund cheerfully accepted from the Abbot the appointment of Economus in charge of the Mission Fund. For the next fifteen years he was outstanding in his service of our parishes in this Office. He was extremely efficient in administering the fund. He obtained the finest expert lay advice and left the fund in a very strong position indeed in spite of the many calls on it. His care and foresight did not make him difficult to approach. He was always welcoming, positive and reasonable and, whether the answer was yes or no, the message he communicated was that his only concern was to serve the brethren.
In January 1978 Fr Edmund retired from Leyland and went to St Mary's Warrington as Assistant. He still had much to do as Economus and in the parish he was quickly welcomed by the people because of his unaffected cheerfulness and care for them. He was forever in the Hospital - during the day time or late at night. He cared for the Catholics there and for everyone else who wanted him. The sick and the staff experienced his presence as a tonic and he was nowhere so much loved. He used to go there even when he should have been resting and taking care of his own frail health. It was his last and eloquent expression of his pastoral care and concern for all in need.
And in these years at Warrington he became Cathedral Prior of Chester. By invitation of the Dean and Chapter he was there, shepherded by Fr Gregory O'Brien as his 'chaplain', on many ecumenical occasions. There was much mutual respect and affection and they even gave Fr Edmund his own section in the procession at the celebration of the nineth centenary of the founding of the Abbey in the presence of the Prince of Wales. Fr Edmund's contribution to ecumenical understanding in the latter years of his life was typically unobtrusive but it was greatly valued. It was the last context in which he emerged as a surprising pathfinder.
Fr Edmund was very feeble in the last year or two, but he never gave up. He died quite suddenly but not unexpectedly at St Mary's Warrington on 16 April 1993.
Brian Edmund FITZSIMONS 1906 Feb 24 b. Garston, Liverpool ed St Edward's College. Liverpool 1925 Nov 27 Habit Ampleforth - Abbot Matthews 1926 Nov 30 Simple vows 1929 Nov 30 Renewed simple vows for a year. 1930 Mar 25 Solemn vows - Abbot Matthews Apr 22,23,24 Tonsure & Minor Orders - Abbot Matthews Jly 20 Subdeacon - Bishop Shine 1931 Jly 19 Deacon - Bishop Vaughan 1932 Jly 24 Priest - Bishop Shine 1937 to London Hostel - 4 houses (note by NPB) 1939 March Warden of London Hostel 1940 March St Anne's Liverpool Assistant 1943 - 1950 Member of Notre Dame Child Guidance Clinic 1950 Sept st Alban's Warrington Assistant 1952 June Leyland Parish Priest 1964 Apr 4 Leyland Church consecrated 1964 Founder member of Liverpool Archdiocesan Liturgical Commission (from 1986 Consultor). 1977 Economus 1978 Jan 8 Retired as PP of Leyland Feb St Mary's Warrington Assistant. 1987 July 21 Cathedral Prior of Chester. 1993 Apr 16 died at St Mary's Warrington aged 87 1954 St Mary's Primary school opened 1963 Nursery School opened 1972 InfantSchool opened 1983 High School opened 1978 St Annes Primary School Leyland opened