It says much for any teacher that forty-five years after leaving a school, some twenty-five former pupils found their way to a Seminary Church tucked away in the countryside for that teacher’s funeral. But for those who knew Ed O’Shea it came as no surprise.

The John Fisher School first came to know Ed in September 1944. He had by then been ordained three years having spent these years in Cambridge University reading for an English degree. Memories are dim about the early years but he was a man of such character that he was quietly able to sustain perfect discipline and respect with the odd word or merely by “being there”. Needless to say his main role was that of a teacher of English and having sat at the feet of Dr Leavis at University he was able to set high standards in the sixth form and send a number of his pupils back to Downing College to hear the great man in their turn. He was great success.

My recollection was not along these lines but two others. Early on I re-call he made part of his English teaching into mini debates when terrified midteenagers had to face the class on their feet and propose or defend some viewpoint lucidly and coherently or, at least, that was the idea. But under his charitable guidance we did come to do it and many had reason to be truly grateful to Ed for the skills we acquired and took into adult life.

The second main innovation he introduced into the JFS during the later forties was to establish an after school society which came to be called the SECAS (the Society for the E??? of Culture, the Arts and Sciences). This society of sixth formers met at 4.31 p.m. each Monday afternoon for about an hour during which, for most evenings, one or other member presented a paper and defended challenges. The range of topics was wide and through this medium the JFS was establishing in a fun way the-later A/L General Studies courses. The minutes of these meetings were part of the entertainment and should be archived if these still exist.

Ed’s contributions to the school were, with hindsight, quite exceptional but first and foremost he was a priest of great devotion and belief. So, on leaving the JFS he joined the parish at St Leonards as parish priest for five years and then set out for an eight year mission to a village in Chile where he assisted the Columban Fathers. We were told at his funeral that Ed had two profound conversions during life – one as a teenager in the seminary which led him to make a promise to devote 15 minutes to spiritual reading every day without fail which he did till he died. Secondly, in Chile he came to understand and live a preferential option for the poor and he lived “as the poor, very simply and frugally. He became King of the poor in their struggle for human dignity as sons and daughters of God”. He returned in poor health but once fit he had a ministry to priests for some years before he became Spiritual Director to the students at St John’s Seminary. The tales of his life at this period displayed his love of music, talent as a composer for the guitar and how he used these talents to come close and to be trusted by the students. He would bring his guitar to entertain at evening get-togethers and was even in his eighties seen in pantomimes!

He always had a soft spot for the JFS and wrote back from Chile excusing himself from an Old Boys’ Dinner by saying he was praying on a mountain top. My last memory of Ed was one Sunday morning in the Weybridge parish 53 years after leaving school. At the back I couldn’t see who was celebrating Mass but knew instantly when Father Ed made the sign of the cross at the beginning of Mass. I waited to speak to him after Mass and started by “You won’t remember me, but my name is…” “Yes” he said, “and how is your brother Pat”. Lively and with it to the last.

He died on 19th November 2004 . God bless him and may he rest in peace.

Father James McGillicuddy, parish priest of Our Lady of the Rosary, Sutton, has sent in a copy of the homily which he gave at Our Lady of the Rosary on Mr Mogford’s funeral Mass on the 29^th November.