' We now turn our attention to the place where Our Dear Lord remains a prisoner of love . The Chapel was dingy , poor and ugly with its dirty beams . Weresolved to have the Parlour of the King of Kings the nicest in the house and I believe we have succeeded . Mr . Young Lee Seng gave us the altar railing and contributed $ 175towards the ceiling . Brother Director collected over $ 1000 for the new pews . The Stations , new wall at the back and paintings of the walls , vestments etc . were paid for by the Community . The cost of all these improvements reached $ 3000 . The pictures of the chapel were all painted by Brother Dorotheus . The first Mass after the renovation was celebrated by Rev . Father Vignol , Nov . 14th , 1904 , at which Young Lee Seng and a few friends assisted .' Sorrows and joys bound the community together . Shortly after this Brother Michael records the heartbreak that the community felt when very suddenly the good Brother Dorotheus died :
' Brother Dorotheus was everybody ' s friend . He was always ready to help his confreres and to cheer them in their trouble . It was he who painted the Chapel , Parlour , Study Hall and boys ' refectory . He was an artist of no small merit and a religious whom we can all imitate . His funeral has been the largest that has ever been seen in Singapore .
' But one loss never comes alone ,' he continued . ' Poor Brother Aibert felt the death of this Brother very much . After coming from the funeral he complained of rheumatism and went to bed . The next day the doctor called to see him . He remained in bed on the 18th , 19th , 20th . On the last date he felt better but toward morning he grew worse . The Director remained up with him all night . At 3
0 ' clock a . m . on the morning of the 21st he placed his hand on his heart and uttered the sweet name of Jesus and breathed his last . This double death was a severe stroke to the community , just think , two Brothers dying within six days of each other . Brother Visitor who happened to be in Penang when Brother Dorotheus died came on to find out the particulars . The first thing he saw on his arrival was the candles blazing around another Brother ' s coffin . The Death of these two Brothers has so saddened the Community that even now [ March 1906 ] it has not recovered from the shock .' The foregoing account may give the impression that the Community was a sad one . But this was very far from the case .
The joyfulness of the Brothers is one of the things that many of their former pupils remember . Brother Honorius , for example , wasa popular French Brother who taught the junior Cambridge class in the 1920s . He was small in stature , with a beard , a man who is remembered as being always cheerful and full of energy . He used to write on the blackboard with such speed that much of what he wrote was illegible . His favourite exclamation was ' Saprisiil ' The pupils were very happy in his class .
As happens in all communities , a certain amount of innocent leg-pulling went on among the Brothers .
' The Anderson Building was then comparatively new and itwas customary to play a joke on a new arrivals ,' writes Brother Anthony McNamara . ' If a Brother arrived to join the community , before he had beep long enough in the school to get acquainted with his surroundings , he was invited to take a walk in town and visit the Brothers ' other school . Usually the offer was quickly accepted . Then the Brother was taken for a long walk around the town and was brought back to St . Ioseph ' s without knowing that he was on the way home . Having arrived in Waterloo Street , the new Brother would be shown the Anderson Building which he duly admired . Then he was invited inside and found that he was back in SJI .' The Brothers capitalised on their belonging to different nationalities . There was on the staff of SJIin 1928a Welsh Brother , whose name was Bemard . He was a very big man . The garrison regiment atTanglin barracks was , at that time , the Welsh Regiment . It had a bad name . Whenever the soldiers of the Welsh Regiment were in trouble , the Straits Times would report it . One would read that two soldiers were found sitting by the side of the road playing a gramophone . When they were asked where they obtained the gramophone they would say they ' found ' it . It was common for a soldier to steal a cycle to go to whatever place he wanted and when he had no more use for the cyclehe would offer it for a dollar to a passer by . There was another Brother on the Staff called Sebastian , who had been in the Regular Army and had seen ser- . vice in World War I . So in the morning Brother Sebastian would ask Brother Bemard if he had seen the newspaper , and if he had not he would warn him not to do so as the news was too shocking . Or if he were reading the paper he would say : ' Pity Bemard . The Welsh Regiment is in trouble again .' Then one day he told Brother Bemard : ' Good news . The regiment is going on transfer . However , no troopship will be required , but only a launch , because the only ones going on transfer are the Colonel and the drummer boy . All the rest are doing time in Changi .' Of course Brother Bemard could reply to Brother Sebastian , and it was always great fun listening , reports Brother Anthony . He adds that when the Regiment did go on transfer the press gave a good write-up , praised the soldiers for their efficiency , thanked them for the security everyone felt when the soldiers were around , and expressed regrets that the people were losing friends to whom they had become attached .
The first impressions of Singapore were sharply etched on the memory of a new Brother . Writing of his arrival in 1924 , Brother Anthony recalls :
' I arrived in Singapore by boat from France in mid-December , on a sunny Sunday morning . 1 was met at the port and taken by car to St . Joseph ' s . There were cars on the roads of Singapore then but they were not numerous , and as 1 entered St . [ oseph ' s , during the 8 o ' clock Mass , 1noticed that there were very many rickshaws outside the Cathedral waiting for the worshippers to come
18 Memories of Sf !