THE P
RTAL
Here am I Lord
Jackie Ottaway and Ronald Crane visit an Ordinariate outpost to meet Fr Ozzie and Margaret Aisbitt
Ulverston is a pleasant market town , not far from
Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria . When we visited it was Market Day and therefore quite busy . However we were not there for the market , nor for the Laurel and Hardy Museum ; ( Stan Laurel was born in the town ); we were there to visit the Aisbitts .
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Fr Ossie is an Ordinariate priest and his wife Margaret leads a team of volunteers , as unpaid manager of the “ Save the Children ” shop .
Fr Ossie is in his eighties and Margaret a little younger . Father is a tall , erect , man , fit for his age . Margaret is very positive and warm-hearted . She has amazing energy and she is using this to get better at the moment . They are both active and Fr Ozzie Aisbitt full of life . Unfortunately a day or so prior to our visit Margaret had a severe fall and was in hospital , so we had to content ourselves with Fr Ossie . ( We have since heard that she is on the mend , home from hospital and recovering .)
Ulverston is an outpost of the Ordinariate , the nearest Ordinariate priests being Fr Masaki Nusawara in Blackpool , Fr Andrew Starkey in Heywood , Manchester and Fr David Butler in Nelson .
Fr Ossie told us , “ I was born on Tyneside , went to school there , then trained for the Anglican ministry at St Chad ’ s College , Durham University . There were as many as sixty curates after me in their second curacies awaiting placement in the Diocese of Newcastle , so when I was invited to serve in West Yorkshire by a friend of my first vicar Margaret and I moved to Wakefield Diocese , where I served for thirty years , most of the time at St Peter and St Leonard ’ s Horbury , a very old established Anglo- Catholic parish . I retired in 1997 and as we had a holiday home in the Lake District it was natural to
move here .
Margaret and I met when we were youngsters at Newcastle Cathedral . I had been a choir boy and then an altar server there and we both attended the AYPA Youth Club . We met at early morning mass as I was at the time doing National Service and living in Barracks nearby . We married in 1962 .
“ I ’ d advised fellow clergy at the time of the Ordination of women to become Roman Catholics , but I held off , partly out of a sense of loyalty to my people , but also not wanting to divide the family . However our elder son John was received into the Catholic Church with the Ordinariate Salisbury Group and we felt the door was now open for us to follow him . Our younger son , Michael , is still a very confident Anglican .”
Jackie said : “ How was it that Margaret came to work in the Charity shop ?”
Fr Ossie responded , “ Well she wanted to be useful in
Margaret Aisbitt retirement and at first she helped in the Hospice Shop in town .
When it closed temporarily to move to a new location she went to help at “ Save the children ,” and eventually became manager – which is an unpaid post . In 2010 she became very ill , and having survived she was determined to give the rest of her life in the best way possible , in this case , to “ Save the children ”. She has had nearly six years clear , but the illness could recur .