was a demonstrator , the little lads saved him by shouting : ' Hey ! That is our Sir !' The police were not a little abashed .
Meanwhile on the Field one man lay dead , and about nineteen were injured . The injured walked to a truck which took them to Hospital .
The Director was summoned to Court as a Crown witness . He subsequently received several threatening letters promising his assassination as ' an agent of Imperialism ' .
Four years later , the new Director of SJI , Brother Ignatius ( returning from home leave ), and seven other Brothers arrived in Singapore Harbour . The date was 13 December 1950 , and they were unable to disembark because there was a curfew . Brother Meldon Treanor was one of the party .
1t was the time of the Maria Hertogh Riots and we were given a police escort to StJoseph ' s . All the Singapore Brothers were on holiday in Penang and we had met them on a brief port call .
We could not get into St [ oseph ' s when we arrived . Every entrance was barred and blocked and it took us some time to make contact . This was finally done when a gaunt military Chaplain named Father Fox decided to stick his head through a window , having been finally awakened by our repeated roars .' The cause of the riot had nothing to do with the Communists on this occasion , but a great deal to do with the religious feelings of the Muslim population . These feelings had , however , been inflamed by the Malay language newspapers . In the resulting violence eighteen persons were killed and 173 injured . The Military were called in in support of the civil
power . Lieutenant-Colonel H . M . J . Jensen O . B . E . was in the vicinity of SJIas the trouble started on the morning of 12 December 1950 .
' I remember going down to the Officers ' Shop , which was in the Rex Hotel in Bras Basah Road , close to St [ oseph ' s Institution . At the Officers ' Shop there was a Royal Air Force policeman on the gate , which was very unusual . I asked the Policeman what he was doing there . He said there was trouble down town . So I went into the shop and saw the Air Vice-Marshal in there . We came out , and the policeman tried to stop us .
' And about that time a man came running in , a civilian , with his shirt all tom , a European , and covered in blood . Weasked what had happened and he told us . He ' d been beaten up .
' We looked out of the gate and we saw people running across from Waterloo Street down towards the Mosque . And at this juncture the Air Vice-Marshal and myself decided that we had better go back and join our units .' Reverend Brother Christopher says tha t the rioters did not , in fact , get any nearer to SJIthan St [ oseph ' s Church . That was the limit of the school ' s involvement , but Brother Visitor , who had arrived by air from Borneo , had to be taken in an armoured ear , with an escort , from Kallang Airport to SJI .
Many years were to elapse and a new era of stability had already begun before the next great event on the school field . It was in 1967 that the young Prime Minister , Lee Kuan Yew , was the Guest of Honour at our Founder ' s Day celebration , on 15 May that year .
The Principal at that time was Reverend Brother Patrick Loh . The Vice-Principal was T . O . Aeria . One thousand and fifty pupils took part , comprising the Army Cadet Corps , the Air Training Corps and representatives of about thirty other organised groups .
At 10.30 am the Prime Minister arrived and was welcomed by Reverend Brother Patrick and the Vice- Principal , Mr Aeria . The Prime Minister then reviewed the parade in a jeep . The March-Pastfollowed - under the command of Captain Tang Wing Kee . It was a stirring sight - fully a third of the school was in uniform . It was not for nothing that Brother Patrick was unofficially known as ' the ECA Principal '. The band was very good as well . In 1967 this was not as commonplace as it is today , and the effect was not lost upon the visitors .
64 Memories of Sf !