clear that the city was expanding in the direction of Katong the selection of their own property as the site of a new school at Telok Kurau had a certain inevitability about it . The story of St Patrick ' s School is glorious , but the story has already been very ably told . Suffice it to say that the Community lost a great deal through it all . First they lost their Boarders , who always provided a happy and hardworking nucleus to the school . Secondly , the Brothers lost their beautiful country house , and finally they lost Brother Stephen who became the first Principal of St Patrick ' s from 1932 to 1937 .
His place at SJIwas taken by Brother Vernier Auguste from Savoy , who was a man of many parts : a clever mathematician , a very good Latin scholar and a skilled draughtsman with a good knowledge of architecture . He used to spend his spare time making new , or repairing old , rosaries , using a local seed , Job ' s tears , as beads , and for wire using German silver which , he said , was neither silver nor German . Brother Augustus ( as he was known ), was very fond of punning and he couldn ' t understand other Brothers , like Brother Comelius , who regarded the pun as the lowest form of wit .
Brother Austin de Lemos remembers bei . ngmet by Brother Augustus at the railway station on his first arrived in Singapore in 1933 .
' We were a really happy Community , under the leadership of a good , clever and understanding Director . With the exception of the Director and Sub-Director , the Community was made up of fairly young Brothers . Ours was a cosmopolitan
Community . There were Frenchmen , Irishmen , German , a Bengali Brother , two Chinese Brothers and three Eurasian Brothers from Burma . It did not take me long to get acclimatized : the atmosphere at St .[ oseph ' s was cheerful and homely ; the Brothers and secular teachers were good mixers ; all had the interests of the pupils at heart ; and the St . [ oseph ' s lads were well-disciplined , friendly , respectful and , generally diligent .
' It was the custom at St . Ioseph ' s for the Brothers to go once a month on a day ' s outing to Ponggol , once or twice to Changi . We rose early , and after our usual Spiritual morning exercises , and a good breakfast , we set out for Ponggol or Changi . We were given thirty cents each , pocket money , quite a little sum at that time . We used itto buy soft drinks and some eatables . We set out in twos or threes . My usual partners were Brother Alexander and Brother Philbert , the Bengali Brother mentioned above .
' On games evenings , twice a week , we would play football in the little ground between Peter Chong ' s book store and the classrooms on the ground floor . We all played with gusto , gave no quarter , sometimes did a little cheating , and filled the air with laughter and argument . Afterwards it was time to take a refreshing bath , change and go to our work-desk in the Community Room to correct the work of our pupils , or prepare our lessons for the next day . The Brothers were never so numerous as in the thirties . In 1934 there were sixteen Brothers in the
Community , of five different nationalities . There were fifteen in 1935 , and , in a photograph taken in 1937 , there are eighteen Brothers : white-haired Brother Stephen Edward sits in the midst of them , at the start of his third term as Director .
In August 1939 Brother Step hen was home again in Ireland . He had planned to take six months leave and then resume his duties in Singapore . Before a month had passed the war broke out . Any possibility of returning to the East was clearly out of the question . He would have to sit itou t . He accepted the position of Principal of La Salle Scholasticate , Mallow , County Cork , only fifty kilometres from his home . Here he had to train future Brothers for their work in the East . The autumn of 1941drew in and the work continued quietly . Then in early December news came through of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor , and , the day following , of the invasion of Malaya . As the news came in , his disquiet grew : he knew everynarne so well . Hemusthavethoughtconstantly of his colleagues in the path of battle . News came that the Prince of Wales had been sunk off the coast of Malaya . On the Saturday following he made arrangements for a special Mass to be said the next morning . The young Brother who had been assigned to knock on his door at 6.30 am heard no reply but went away . When Brother Stephen did not appear at 7am two Brothers went up to his room . The larger of them put his shoulder to the door and broke the lock . Brother Stephen had passed away quietly in his sleep .
The Community , 1900 -1939 21