built the staircases at either end of the Anderson Building when the central one became old . He removed the iron spiral stairs beside the Chapel and by the Library , and built the stairs between the main building and the Brothers ' Quarters . He created the Canteen and the Library . He commissioned the great mural in the library from Brother [ oseph McNally .
Such was the man who presided over the great postwar expansion of SJI , especially in the Primary sphere .
Brother Meldon Treanor , who arrived in SJI in 1950 , recalls that the library was ' after a year or two , the showpiece of SJI , and certainly the best college Library in the '' Malaya '' of those days . Most of the books were picked and bought by Rev . Bro . Henry O ' Brien , Alban Lynam and myself . We spent many hours of any free time we had , especially Saturday mornings , down in the city bookstores - a very difficult and trying occupation .' The School Spotlight ( the school magazine ) reported enthusiastically on the new tables and chairs , and the encouragement they offered to study in the Library , which used to remain open until late in the evening .
Students still have vivid recollections of their teachers in those days . Tan Eng Yoon remembers Brother Ioseph McNally chiefly for his humour . He remembers Ngui Jim Chiang who taught him Geography , and Sng Yew Chong whom he had for General Science ( They were great teachers , very dedicated ') and Brother Brendan who was in charge of Marcian ( Green ) House (' He was always very cheerful '). Brother Charles and Leonard Aloysius he remembers particularly because they coached in Athletics . Brother Alban taught him History (' A very patient man '). He was particularly grateful to Brother Aloysius , a Welsh Brother , because his second language was Mandarin but his Mandarin teacher gave up teaching , so he had no second language . ( Mandarin was only taught privately in 1947 .) Brother Aloysius suggested that he try Latin ! ' Eng Yoon , you can do it ! No problem .' Thus encouraged Eng Yoon gave to Latin the same degree of concentration that he gave to running ( in which he became a Gold Medallist ) and he gained his credit in Latin . This , in spite of the fact that all the schools in Singapore closed from 3 May to 14 June on account of an outbreak of polio . So whenever he thinks of Latin Tan Eng Yoon thinks of Brother Aloysius .
' Another teacher ! recall ,' says Patrick Mowe , ' is F . J . Rappa . I wish that a lot of our young teachers could emulate him . They were really of the old school - F . J . Rappa , the two Reutens brothers , CyriJ and Freddie . These were the teachers who ran their classes and kept their pupils in good order and discipline without shouting , without caning , without threats , because they kept them occupied in an organised way throughout , and they never had any trouble with their students as far as I can recall . I mean even some of the Brothers used to have difficulty when they were young !'
Rudy Mosbergen recalls four teachers in particular :
' In the area of Science there was a teacher by the name of Sng Yew Chong . Now Mr Sng has unfortunately passed away , but Mr Sng , having taught in St Ioseph ' s for a number of years then became the Science Specialist at the Ministry of Education . Finally he became a very high official in the Vocational and Industrial Training Board ( VITB ). He was really one of those teachers from St Ioseph ' s who were very high up in the Education Service . He was very well known for his Science teaching . I had the privilege of being taught by him .
When it came to Geography there was another gentleman , Mr Ngui Jirn Chiang . Mr Ngui is very well known to many of us because he had this very pleasant way of teaching the subject . We were most happy to study Geography in those days because of [ im Chiang - we used to call him "[ immy ", by the way .
' We also had Brother Ioseph McNally who was a new arrival . He did teach us for a short time . We remember him because of the way he used to move around the classroom . We caUed him " WaIting Joe " because he used to wa Itz across the class and waltz back again . This was [ oseph McNally , a young Brother who had just come out from Ireland at that time .
' We also had Brother Henry whom we nicknamed lames Cagney . He was very fond of saying " Hoorry Oop ! Hoorry Oop !" And so one of the boys asked : " How do you spell ' Oop '?" And he said : " U ... P ... Oop ... U ... P ... Oop ." , No account of the Staff of SJIwould be complete without reference to Miss Freda Jansen . She began teaching at SJIwhen she was a girl of only seventeen . She used to have sixty boys in the class at one time in her early days and sometimes two classes in a room , one writing and the other doing an oral lesson . She used to keep her classroom absolutely spotless . She gave vitamin tablets to the thin boys and dosed all her class with cod-liver oil every day . She kept toilet paper available for the boys in the days before it was available in the office .
One of her little pupils , Maurice de Vaz , recalls :
' My most vivid memory of my first year in school was that of my Primary teacher , Miss [ ansen . It appeared she had always been the Primary teacher for Primary lA and had doubtless seen through and firmly laid the foundation for many distinguished careers righ t there in her Primary lA classroom . She was a formidable person both in her demand for discipline and application to work . I don ' t believe anyone could have had a finer introduction to school than by coming under her tutelage for a whole year .
' An event that still sticks clearly in my mind is that of my very first day at school . I remember how , after the bell went , signalling the end of recess , I found myself in the tuckshop area somewhat lost and unable to find my way back to my classroom . I eventually found my way to the front of the school and remember running across the
56 Memories ofSJI