Originally published in The Gateway Issue No. 34 (October 2011)
Brother Wilfrid was born at St. Andre-de-Maurienne, Savoy, France, on the 28th January 1886. He entered the Juniorate at Annecy in 1899. In 1902 he entered the Novitiate at La Villette and it was there he took the Habit of the De La Salle Brothers.
Almost immediately, in 1903, he was sent on the missions and served briefly in Ceylon, and Malaya before being posted to St. Joseph’s College, Hong Kong. He arrived in Hong Kong on the 22nd June 1908 and was assigned to teach Standards III and IV at St. Joseph’s College, then sited at Robinson Road. Apart from brief assignments in Manila and Malaysia and Vietnam, he was to spend the rest of his life teaching in Hong Kong.
In those days there was what was called the English section and the Chinese section of the school, as well as the Commercial class. In the English section, apart from the subject of Chinese, all the teachers were Brothers. There were about 400 pupils. There was also the tradition of having two half-days every week, on Wednesdays and Saturdays.
At that time the Brothers were paid salaries by the Diocese. A Brother’s salary was Hong Kong $20.- a month and this had to be supplemented by the Boarders’ fees. There were 40 to 50 Boarders coming mainly from the Philippines, Macau, Amoy, Indochina and Hong Kong. Some Brothers were chief Prefects of Boarders while others helped out on Sundays and holidays. Brother Wilfrid also taught Catechism to the Boarders.
He taught in St Joseph’s from 1908 until January 1912 when he was sent to help the newly founded mission in Manila. He returned to St Joseph’s in May 1914, around the same time that Brother Aimar Sauron was sent as Director. Besides regular teaching, Brother Wilfrid was asked to prepare, type, print and preside over the examinations of the middle and lower classes and also helped out in the Catholic life of the school. In addition, he typed the letters for Brother Director Aimar.
Then came the earthquake. We have it in Brother Wilfrid’s own words: “Shortly after the building of the extended Annexe, an earthquake in 1918 so shook the main structure of St Joseph’s building that we had to evacuate part of it immediately, whilst looking for new quarters. The mortgaged German Club and adjacent grounds were acquired from the Canton Insurance Society. The Club building was partitioned off into rooms for the Brothers’ quarters, Boarders’ accommodation and the upper and middle classes.” And so began the move to the German Club building on Kennedy Road.
Brother Wilfrid continues: “It was about this time (1918-1919) that Brother Aimar asked me to prepare the compilation of a school prayer book. It was closely checked by Monsigneur Pozzoni, Vicar Apostolic. In the course of time it came to be called A Guide to Devotion.”
There followed a short term of duty in Malaya, from 1920 to 1922. His health had suffered somewhat as he recalls: “I returned from Malaya on 7-9-22, an unhealed man from an appendicitis operation which left me with an open wound, discharging matter. After about two months observation Dr Strahan operated again and closed the wound. I healed and have been very well ever since.” He resumed regular teaching at a number of different levels.
Brother Wilfrid was committed to the study of the Chinese language. He would spend hours checking and researching the origins, composition and meaning of the characters and wrote numerous manuscripts, none of which, alas, has survived.
Here is what he has to say: “As to Chinese, I succeeded only in reading medium Chinese not classical or modern literary Chinese. I have what is called a working knowledge of spoken Cantonese and Mandarin but my deafness always proved a hindrance to my understanding.
As to what they call my ‘Chinese Dictionary’, it consists of special devices to quickly learn the ‘Students’ 4000 Characters’. As usual in these things the mnemonic devices are generally looked upon as something harder than the study itself, except by intellectuals. Students who cannot make out the mnemonic parts may leave them out.”
From 1928 to 1932 Brother Wilfrid served in Malaysia before returning to Hong Kong on the 16th May 1933, this time to teach in the newly opened La Salle College. Apart from a few years in Indo-China during the War, he was to spend the rest of his life at La Salle.
He was first put teaching Class 3A and taught at various levels until the outbreak of war. In July 1942 he was issued with an identity card by the College of Education run by the Japanese. By this means he was expected to learn the Japanese language with a view to teaching through this medium. The Brothers held on in Hong Kong until the 22nd March 1943 when, led by Brother Aimar, most left for Indochina. There Brother Wilfrid could help with the teaching of French and English and also with the procurement of material goods. After the war, he managed to get back to La Salle arriving on the 20th April 1946.
There followed the takeover of the College by the British army and the removal of the school to the ‘temporary’ hutments in Perth Street. The ‘exile’ lasted all of ten years. Old boys of the time remember Brother Wilfrid well and not always too comfortably. He believed in the liberal use of the cane for even minor infringements and sometimes its use was perceived as unwarranted or somewhat over the top. His classes would start half an hour early and finish half an hour late. Those sent to detention, and there were many, meant staying another hour before release. It seems clear that Brother Wilfrid subscribed to the ‘spare the rod, spoil the child’ educational philosophy, common to what some people refer to as the ‘Old Guard’.
‘The man with the beard’ was what he was popularly called. However, the students gave him a Chinese nickname蠶豆meaning ‘Broad Bean’. Presumably his students felt that his facial features bore some resemblance to the shape of a broad bean!
The Silver Jubilee magazine of the College records that he was “as zealous and active as ever.” One aspect of his zeal was promoting religion, especially various forms of Catholic devotions. To this end, with the help of Brother Cassian, he re-edited the prayer-book called “Guide to Devotion”. It was printed in 1952 by the Hong Kong Nazareth Press and some copies are still extant. In its day it was widely used. The author sums up his hopes for the book as follows:
“To sum up, this little book will have fulfilled its mission of being a Guide to Devotion if it helps to make us understand God better, and be more manly in his service, because, by helping us to walk with him, it shall have developed day by day the friendship between God and each of us.”
In one school magazine an old boy writes of an interesting encounter with Brother Wilfrid. Brother was teaching him one fine day when he was in the lower forms and suddenly called him “a blackguard”. The old boy says he always remembered this, firstly, because it was the first time he learned the pronunciation of this word and secondly because he had the uneasy suspicion that the assessment of his character was close to the mark!
Time was moving on but nobody thought that Brother Wilfrid was nearing his end. After official retirement, he had continued to help around the school, and in particular took classes in Dictation. But the body was wearing out and he had to be hospitalised in St Teresa’s. It was there he passed to his reward on the 27th July 1960 at the age of seventy four. Bishop Lawrence Bianchi celebrated the funeral Mass and Brother Wilfrid was then laid to rest in the Brothers’ plot in Happy Valley.
