Patrick Fleming, a devout Catholic and Burnley man who was well-known in his community for his voluntary work and his friendly presence as a window-cleaner, has left the Saint Vincent de Paul Society £2,000 gift in his will.
Fleming, who died at the age of 94 on 11 January, started volunteering with the Catholic anti-poverty charity while he was still in his teens, and continued to work there over seventy years, delivering food parcels to the foodbank, as well as furniture and even an oven to those in need.
Fleming and his family would also forgo Christmas presents so that they could donate to the charity, he frequently paid visit to people in his community who were sick or in hospital.
To his delight, Fleming once met and chatted to Pope Francis at a Mass at the Vatican in 2019, an encounter to add to his meeting with Mahatma Gandhi who he saw when the religious leader visited the cotton mills of Lancashire in 1931.
Fleming left school at 14 to work as a miner, and later sold his window cleaning round three times, each time returning to work because of his popularity with Burnley residents, before finally retiring at the age of 74.
His son Bernard Fleming said: “He was humble and he was definitely a working man, but he was not ordinary. He even completed his O-level maths not long before he retired, just because he could. He was also a lifelong fan of Burnley Football Club and was a regular at Turf Moor. He was a wonderful, generous, kind man.”
Helen O’Shea, president of the Saint Vincent de Paul society says: “Our actions live on after we pass, so Patrick’s inspirational life of giving should be a lesson to us all. We are incredibly grateful to Patrick for his gift in his will, which will allow his SVP group at St John the Baptist to continue his selfless work in his beloved community in Burnley.”
The St Vincent de Paul Society was founded in 1833 by the Blessed Fréderic Ozeman and works to alleviate poverty globally, helping people in the most deprived communities regardless of faith, ethnicity, ideology or gender.
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