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.