Brother Noel (Berthomieu)

Brother Noel is a Frenchman. We were an international organization. We usually send missionaries according to their countries. In Thailand, we send Spanish Brothers. In India, they sent French Brothers. And here, they wanted Canadian brothers to come here. In Thailand, there were French-Spanish Brothers.

Most of the brothers who first came were from Thailand. 3 of them who first came were Spanish. Brother Noel is a Frenchman. He is a builder. He was man with a very strong character, a good smoker. He could be a very fearful type of person, an excellent teacher but he had a heart of gold.

I know him very well when he was here. One of the qualities of most of the brothers, if not all of the brothers, was that they had a heart of gold. Mine is of diamond. The heart of gold is the most touching part of the person. Sometimes you don't know them until you face them one-to-one, they begin to talk to you about why you behave this way and you find that these people are trying to see what they can do for your welfare.

One of the touching stories of Brother Noel is that although he was very fearful and very severe, he had practically no sense of humor. It was very hard to joke with him because he took every joke seriously but I remember one day, when he was Principal at St Gabriel, one boy from Secondary One came to the office after recess, climbed oonto him and held him by the neck and said, "You are like a father to me. I am very sick, can you take me home?"

Brother quickly took him home and told the mother to call the doctor, "Your boy doesn't seem too good and please keep me informed".

When he came back, he received a call that the boy died at home. That completely changed his attitude towards the students because he felt that people were keeping aloof of him. He was a man who would repeat the same story a thousand times and ten. If he started the story, we could finish it before him but he was very proud of his school, proud of St Gabriel where he was, proud of Montfort where he came from.

When he was in Montfort, he was in charge of the scouts. He started the scout movement. And when I came here in 1954, he was there. We were living in this cubicle up there in this old house, smelly and what not, very old. Every Friday, I would see him near the lab, the lab was down below in the old house. He would spend one or two hours there. He was not a scientist. He was digging ice cream and putting it into cups to sell for the benefit of the scouts.

And I said, "Why you don't get the scouts to help you?". He said he had their own obligations.

"Can I help you?", I asked.
"Of course"

So he said, "yes, you count. So, every afternoon, we worked for about one hour and I knew alot of his stories through this kind of contact. Anyway, we were making a little money, not much, and that was going for the benefit of the scouts.

He was a man who was very quick in discovering among the students those who were most in need of. He looked very scary but he was very attentive and sensitive to the needs of the student. And he would go all out to get benefactors.

You must know that the Brothers have no money. The Brothers in their first 20 years in Singapore, their salary was about $750 whatever qualifications you had. This money all went to the buildings of the school, to the welfare of the students. Those days, the government gave nothing. All the wings that we built were built with the Brothers money and the need to give to the poor was coming from there. We lived in the most poor condition, very tiny cell. The food was okay but we were poor, we were very very poor. And we had the occasion to practice it. But we were very attentive to those in need. And in Hougang there were many who were very poor. They were mainly Catholics and we could find out through the priests who knew them. We send you to the Brothers and they will help you. We had quite a number of noble men. Not to name one of them is Mr Lim, Lim Boon Heng, who was not from a very rich family and he is not afraid to mention in his speech that what impressed him the most was iin spite of his father having no proper education, he was taken to school and made what he is today because of the Brothers of St Gabriel.

His Grace, the Archbishop Nicholas Chia, owes his vocation to the love and care of Brother Noel. He met Brother Noel when he was in the band. He had long talks with Brother Noel . It was with the encouragement of Brother Noel that he decided to become a priest.

Brothers of St Gabriels and NE / Citizenship issues

Brother Emmanuel: Most of the brothers who have come here, except for 2 or 3 have died in the mmission land. This is the dream of most of us. We don't dream of going back. So, when the occasion came for Singapore to become independent, all of us have applied for Singapore citizenship. I am one of the few to do it with Brother Vincent, and the others followed. The others who came, they had to wait ten years before they were allowed to become citizens of Singapore. In so doing, they had lost all the advantages and pensions that we had in the past. So, if I go to Canada for more than 3 months, I need a visa to enter into my own country.

Brother Albert

Brother Emmanuel: In the case of Brother Albert, he was again a great man but he was sunfortunately sickly. Here, in Singapore, we couldn't do much for him and so we sent him to the Mayo clinic in the United States where they gave him a metal valve for his heart. On the first of January, on the year that he died, we looked for him aall over the place and we couldn't find him. He was not in his office, not in his room, there were calls from his family from Canada to wish him a Happy New Year and suddenly in the afternoon, one of the afternoon who was living at the house in Kangkar saw a door ajar. She thought she saw on the floor, an American, she said. And when the people came, they saw it was Brother Albert who told the sisters to return to the Community, every morning he would go to off the lights and every evening he would go to put it on. And he died suddenly with his hand grasping his heart. It's only when we exhumed him three years ago, we found that the valve was intact.

Memories of Brother Louis Gonzaga

Brother Emmanuel: Brother Louis Gonzaga, having worked in this country for fifty over years, he died a very miserable death. He went into a kind of hospice where you ppaid through your nose. He fell and the doctor who visited him that night said he was a complainer and that there was nothing wrong. The next day when I went to see him, I was Brother Provincial at that time, we discovered that there were 7 or 8 ribs broken. One of them had gone right through the lungs and within 3 or 4 days, he died in the General Hospital. So, we lost many of our brothers through medical negligence in those days.

Interviewer: What were your memories of Montfort School?

Brother E: What struck me most about Holy Innocents was the family spirit which we do not see today. Today, the boys are there, they are beautiful, they are wonderful, they are great. But (in the past, it was something that was very natural. The school was very small in number. You practically knew all the boys by their names. We had competitions. It was a pleasure. Whether we lost or won, everybody rejoiced. Even those who lost were given a loud round of applause. Today, it's competition, ccompetition, achievement, achievement and blowing one's trumpet as loud as you can. You can hear it from the square where the boys assembly every morning, right up to my office here.

That was the impression I had. It was a family kind of rural school. I don't think many people like to hear that word, 'Rural school', whose parents, people around, it was a Kampong; There were all kinds of people going about selling their wares, mmaking noise with their machines selling drinks. In those days, the Brothers had no cars, so we went out for walks, everybody knew us almost by names. They used to call me "Ang Mo Mark" and they used to call one of us 'Char Bo Kiah' and Brother James 'Ang Mo' and they didn't know Brother Emmanuel but it doesn't matter. The family spirit which we saw on feast days, on sports day, on days of glory and pain and misery, when someone was sick or dying, everyone was gathered together as one, big family. That was the way we were in 1954 when i first came in April 1954. I was there till January 1955.

Now today, if you meet the Montfort boys, my impression is that the kind of respect tthat we used to receive as Brother before is no more there. Not because they ddon't like the Brothers but because they don't know any brothers. They only know one or two by name because we go for functions but if we go there, there are fathers or bishops or whatever it is. There is not the kind of 'Hi Brother. How are you brother?" except for the teachers who know us and the older boys who transferred from 7 or 8 years ago, they were in Primary right up to Secondary, who remeber there were such kinds of categories of people whome we called Brothers of St Gabriel.

We have to remake the name of the Brothers. I don't know how we will do that. Visiting the schools more frequently, by the schools speaking about us more than they do. They have done very well. They beautiful room which they call the Heritage GGallery is one of the best that they have in Singapore.

For the elderly people, it means something. For the young people, I wonder what kind of impact it has. Big tableau of brothers and the most handsome one is the last one. I was the youngest at the time. They are there. But I wonder whether the school do the history in details of what Holy Innocents was or what Montfort is today.

I've always known that people are very respectful (of the Brothers). They may not ggreet you because they don't know who you are. Even the staff, in my time we were aall Aided School staff. In Montfort, when I was there, we were ten brothers. The staff and the brothers, we were very united. Today when I go there, we don't know the staff, the staff don't know us, unless we are introduced and we begin to speak to them and they find that you are a joker and they like you that way. And the next day, they will remember you. But otherwise, I don't see any difference between going tto a mission school at Montfort or a government school as a visitor.

People do not know you, even if you are the owner, the authority of the school. The jagas, the people of the school, they don't know you until we have our first kind of ccontact where we 'brainwash' the government teachers to know about the good things Montfort stands for like we did so many year ago.

But apart from that, the discipline, the respect between the boys and the teachers is very remarkable. It has been that way for the past 3,4,5 years. The Principal of the Secondary and the Principal of the Primary are really outstanding in making Montfort well-known in every respect. If you go to Montfort today like the Lau Jiak, although the young people they come and greet, you could see there was a sense of family spirit. Everybody is happy, they are drinking beer, eating, they were enjoying themselves. But the elderly, they came immediately and they pay their respects. We don't go for that. We come to just see and feel happy to visit the school. But there is a lack of link between the new generation of students, 10-15 yyears back and today. The government teachers are nice, they try their best to adapt themselves. Some of them even do better than the elderly teachers to be attached to the school and the traditions of the school, but there is a kind of er....I won't say indifference but a kind of ignorance about what has been done before about the founders of the school. And this is a point that they should look upon.I would recommend it.

I will soon disappear. That is missing. Now, I am giving my frank opinion. Don't record. I can be frank but less elaborate.

Interviewer: What are your memories of the Brothers whom we see in the Gallery?

Brother E: What touches me when I go to that gallery is the photos of all this elderly brothers who are ignored. I hope that one day, someone will be able to write about the contributions they have made.

Brother Gerard Majella was the first one to go there. He was followed by Brother Stanislaus, Brother Adolphus and Brother Louis Gonzaga. They arrived fresh in their early 20s as young missionaries, not knowing what they were there for. They were tthere to be teachers in a school where we were there bringing our faith and traditions and to offer the best of what we have, not forcing them into it.

What I admire the most, you'll be very surprised, is that practically all of the bbrothers who were there, until Brother Philbert, none of them was a qualified teacher. They were all self-made men. They were there with what they had in their hearts, as missionaries, to give their best that they could give.

For example, when Brother Philbert died, some ministers came. Brother Philbert was a very outstanding person. Feared by many because he had a very loud voice. He could lose his temper but he was a very knowledgeable self-made man. He could teach aaccounts, economics, literature, maths, physics, mathematics, latin, greek, any ssubject, without having gone to any college of education nor tertiary institution.

When Mr Augustine Tan came to pray at his wake,he told me we had never seen any man so highly qualified. And when I told him that he even did not have an O level equivalent because Brother Philbert came about the same age as I at age 20,21, and in those days, the emphasis was not on the fact that the Brothers be qualified but tthat they were brothers, they were automatically made teachers with a very basic eeducation and taken as teachers

Another example is Brother Thomas. He was given the greatest award as a Science Teacher. And when he was interviewed, he said he learnt all that by himself without going to any insitutions, they were overwhelmed. He brought in science to the school and the results were excellent.

Brother Bernardine was highly qualified. He came in elderly. He had been in Africa, in India, in Canada as a teacher. He was well-qualified amongst the Brothers.

Brother Noel was a brother like me. We never went to any institution of higher education. We learnt as we were put into the classroom. This is literature, one lesson ahead of the boys, and the boys thought we were good.

I think the Brothers in those days had at heart the welfare of the boys and we wanted to give them the best we could. The results we produced were very good in spite of the fact that we were not really qualified.

Brother Albert had a Bachelor's degree but he was not a teacher. He was a Principal most of the time. As an administrator, he could have been considered as a man of good will but not as a real administrator. The one who shouted the loudest carried the day but he had a heart of gold because of this kindness and the kind of mission that we had. The difference between the brothers and the layman is that we have no other attachment. We are not married, we have no children of our own, so we marry the vocation, we marry the schools we are sent to, and we give our best. People go home to their families, we go home and we prepare notes, read , no TV in those days, and try to learn as much as we can so that we can give the best that we can.

We also had a mission that is very important. The mission of bringing Christ into the school. Although Hougang at the time was a most Catholic area, I think the Brothers have produced more priests and religious than any other congregation. You can tell that to the La Salle Brothers. (laughs) We have beaten them in that mission of drawing priests. The first missionaries were really missionaries who came with a mission of bringing Christian values to all the students - cathechism, moral oinstruction, morning prayer, mass, rosaries in chruch, the prayers every hour over tthe loudspeaker, everyone catholic was participating. And when we taught cathechism or religious knowledge, every student took part. Those who scored the highest marks were the non-Catholics. So, we brought something very special which the other government schools did not have.

I have many students from government schools coming and telling me, "You people have something very special. We don't know what it is but you bring the kind of divine spirit into the spirit, a spirit of charity, a spirit of kindness, a spirit of devotedness, which we find difficult to find in other schools". It does not mean that government schools do not have good one. There are very good people there but they are not allowed to use this kind of means to reach out to the student.

Interviewer: What are your memories of Brother Louis Gonzaga?

He was from Spain. He was there when there was a huge persecution. Quite a number of brothers were killed. About 40 brothers were killed for their faith. He didn't run away from faith. But the congregation began to spread their wings outside Europe. Brother Louis was sent to Thailand. In Thailand, he was a teacher. He mastered the Thai language and he was doing very well. In 1936 or 1937, at the invitation of then Bishop Monsigneur Devals that he volunteered. He was young, he was happy. So many Thai people came to visit him. He came here as a kind of founder, the first Brother to be in Montfort school before we took over. We were a bit scared that there would be a kind of competition between the De Lasalle Brothers, the IJ sisters who came before us who have been here for almost a hundred years. We have been here since 1936.But we never came with a spirit of competition.

The Lasalle brothers and Marist Brothers as institutors and teachers have the same fformation that we had. We came to develop education in Singapore when there were very few schools in Singapore. We came with the spirit of bringing God, Christ, and the values of St Louis de Montfort, which differ from each school, into the schools that we were. In no time, Montfort School had a good reputation. The Minister of Education were all British people in those days, wanted more and more brothers.

Thailand had a certain number of missionaries. They sent four or five. Brother Thomas was one of them. And a French Canadian Brother, John of Brebouf,came as teachers to Montfort school. Then we started recruiting teachers.

The first teachers we recruitd were ex-students. They just finished their O level. They were allowed by the government to come in as teachers and so, many of them took a long time before they went to do their A levels, college of education and before they took their degrees. But they were sent to learn by the Brothers but the Brothers were told you are here as missionaries, you give God to them, the other sciences will be given by their teachers.

It happend to us that Brother Louis and Brother Thomas and Brother Urban, a very good Mathematics and Literature teacher, took up studies and had degrees finally, and made Montfort what it is today.

Most of those Brothers who came, they came in their younger age. All of them came in their 20s. Some of them 18 or 19. They were supposed to come for life. That was the idea. They were not intended to return to their home country. It was only latter that the Church remembered that there was fourth commandment, Honour Your Father and Mother, so as long as your parents are around, you are allowed to return to your home country ten years after you came into Singapore.

I remember when I went back to Canada, many of them I didn't know. I had 10 brothers and sisters. They were at the airport with their nametag. I could only see their photos. After that, we went back every 6 years, every 3 years now.

I think they were men of qualities. None of them left the Brother hood. They died either in Singapore or they went back to their home country to die because they were either too old to teach or to receive medical treatment unavailable here.