Bro Noel was born as Noel Albert Berthomieu and he lived from 1916 o 1969. He was 23 years old when he arrived at Holy Innocents' English School. He was teaching in India for a year prior to his assignment to Singapore. When WW2 broke out, he was enlisted to join the Frencch army in Indo-Chia fro April 1940 until July 1941. He was interned at baua, Malaysia until the Japanese surrender in 1945. He returned together with Bros. Louisggonzaga and Thomas of Aquinas to resume their responsibilities when Japan surendered in 1945.
Holy Innocent's English School was reopened in the later part of 1946. He taught in Montfort School for 3 years. By the end of 1949, he returned to France.
In 1951, he returned to Singapore to teach at St Josephs' Trade School. In 195, he was appointed as Director of Montfort School for 3 years. In Dec 1962, he was appointed where he remained until his death in 1969 at the age of 53
In an interview with Bro Emmanuel in 2007, he shared,
"Brother Noel was a Frenchman. We (the Bros of St Gabriel's) 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 both French-Spanish Brothers.
Most of the brothers who first came to Singapore arrived from Thailand. Three of them who first came were Spanish. (Bro. Louis, Bro. Gerard Majella were two of then)
In an interview with Bro Emmanuel in 2007, he shared,
"Brother Noel , he is is a builder. He was man with a very strong character and he smoked quite a bit. He could be a very fearful type of person, an excellent teacher but he had a heart of gold.
He was like me, we never came from any higher institutions of educatoin. We learnt as we were being put into the classroom. We were told, "this is literature" and we were one page ahead of the boys and the boys thought we were good. I think the brothers in those days had a heart for the welfare of the boys and they wanted to give them the best of what they had. The results produced were very good in spite of the fact that we were not qualified.
I know him very well when he was in Singapore. 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, until 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, what they can for for you.
One of the touching stories of Brother Noel is that although he was very fearful and very severe, there were touching and tender moments. 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 onto 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 stopped what he was doing, 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 had 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 also 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's where he was, and proud of Montfort where he had been Principal there as well.
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 they had their own obligations.
"Can I help you?", I asked.
"Of course", he replied
So he said, "yes, you (count the scoops). So, every afternoon, we worked for about one hour and I knew alot of his stories through this kind of contact (with him). 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 becuse he was very strict 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 had 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 building extensions and wings that we built were built with the Brothers money and the need to give to the poor was coming from there (as well). 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. (That was what they were told)
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 that in 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."
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Bro. Noel died very young and had a miserable death. He was 53. He had complications in his lympanery system from his prostate. He was in hospital and I went to saw him. I saw his gasping for breath and I saw a red light. I rang the bell for half an hour but nobody came. So, I shouted, "quick, he's dying". He had an oxygen tank. They told me that they run tubes with the wrong kind of blood and this is what killed him.
That night I told him, "aren't you lucky to be on a holiday while we are all working in the schools". \
"You young man", he said, "one day you will wear my shoes and I did wear his shoe as Director in St Gabriel's School"
Next morning, I received a call and he was dead. He should not have died of such a minor kind of operation.
What was most outstanding about Bro. Noel is that despite that fact that he as severe wherever he was, when he gave a slap to the boy, the boy will fly, in spite of that, we never saw crowd so big as at his funeral service and the mobile police, the chief was an old boy of the school, he had arranged for a whole series of mobile to take him from the church of the Immaculate Heart of Mary right up to the middle. Everywhere, there was no stop. And the newspaper said that we had lost someone great.
He was a huge person. Very strong. Very set in his ways and a Man of God."
Bro. Noel was very fierce. Oh, he was a very huge man and he spoke in a very gruff voice. He was very strict but he loved the boys greatly. There is the end-of-term event that we always had every year and back in those days, near Simon Road, Florence Road and outside the schools, you would have gangsters who try to recruit our boys or maybe extort money from them. Bro. Noel would go around in his car and patrol the area to make sure that the boys got home safely. If he saw any funny characters hanging around, he would come out of his car and these group of unsavory characters would run away. Everyone in the area knew who he was and what he stood for and people would just go away. That was the kind of man Bro. Noel was.
ReplyDeleteHe used to tell us stories of the Japanese Occupation when he was in the French army.He was walking one day and did not bow to the Japanese and they beat him up quite badly. He tells us that he was lucky to survive that day - Mr B. Lee, 2/4/2013