This Is Your Life: Edmund Arbuthnott

Canon Edmund ARBUTHNOTT (1909-1998)

THIS IS YOUR LIFE - Edmund Arbuthnott, clergyman and charity worker, was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the BBC Television Theatre, having been led to believe he was there for a tour of the building.

Edmund was born in Paignton and educated at Wimbledon College and Christ's College, Cambridge. Having been ordained as a Roman Catholic priest, he was sent to the Dockhead Parish in Bermondsey, London, in 1937, where he introduced the Young Christian Workers movement to the area. During the Second World War, Edmund was an important figure in the local community, organising pantomimes, concerts and activity clubs for young people.

In March 1945, Edmund was the only one of four priests who survived when a V2 rocket struck the area, destroying the Most Holy Trinity Church and convent in the blast. After a year of recovery, Edmund became the secretary of the Southwark Catholic Rescue Society and, in 1958, was appointed National Chaplain to the Young Christian Workers - the organisation he had helped to establish in England 20 years earlier.

programme details...

Edition No: 104
Subject No: 104
Broadcast live: Mon 5 Oct 1959
Broadcast time: 7.30-8.05pm
Venue: BBC Television Theatre
Series: 5
Edition: 6

on the guest list...

Eva Alfert
Sid Alfert
Freddie Baldwin
Eileen Jones
Bernie Mahoney
Danny Mahoney
Seumas Mahoney
Joe Mahoney
Rev Leslie Fisher
Ted Heming
Tommy Barham
Joyce Moore
David Jordan
Angela Neale
Leslie Hayes
Patrick Heffernan
Peter Morgan

production team...

Researcher: Liam Nolan
Writer: Liam Nolan
Director: unknown
Producer: T Leslie Jackson

related pages...

Life's Vocation

celebrating the 'men of God'

This Is Your Life

Radio Times feature on the sleuth-like manner of the 'pick-up'

Photographs of Edmund Arbuthnott This Is Your Life

The Catholic Herald 9 October 1959

'Father Afterthought'

"Father Afterthought" - or more officially Canon Edmund Arbuthnott - got the second surprise of his life when on Monday he was spotlighted as the central figure in the BBC televised This Is Your Life programme. His first surprise was when during the war a German bomb fell on a South London church and he found he still lived.

The Canon was introduced as the man who had a lot to do with the introduction of the Young Christian Workers' movement here 20 years ago; as the priest who was everywhere when bombs fell on Dockside; as head of the Southwark Catholic Rescue Society, where some of his 1000 children could not pronounce his name and called him "Father Afterthought"; and finally as the youth leader who is now back in the YCW movement as its national chaplain.

A Protestant clergyman called to him on the night of a fearful blitz as Fr. Arbuthnott lay buried in the debris "Edmund, don't move," he said, and the minister prayed for him as men struggled for hours to release him. "I'm ready to die," Fr. Arbuthnott replied. But he lived to hear his story retold on the BBC.

Canon Arbuthnott is still wondering who suggested last Monday's telecast. "I've a suspicion Fr. Gordon Albion can explain," he said.

This is the first time that a Catholic personality, particularly a priest, has featured in this popular BBC series.

Research work for the production of this programme was carried out by Mr Liam Nolan, a 28-year-old Irish Catholic who lives in South London and has been nearly two years on the staff of BBC Television as a writer. Fr. Gordon Albion and Fr Agneilus Andrew OFM, were also "in on the secret".

Series 5 subjects