Legend of Brother Albinus lives on

Nicknamed Abai by many, the late educationalist will always be remembered for his steadfast faith in carrying out God’s work.

THE passing of Brother Albinus, my former principal at Sacred Heart Secondary School in Sibu, last Aug 4 at the age of 83, had a huge bearing on all his former students.

Since then, many, if not all, who received education under the Irishman, had reflected on their lives and experiences they had with him.

He was laid to rest at St Joseph’s Cemetery in Kuching last Aug 8 after spending 53 years in Sarawak, a place which he called home.

He was affectionately called Abai by both teachers, students and parents. Unfortunately, no one that I know of today seems to know how and why he was given the nickname. Anyone with the knowledge perhaps should enlighten others on it.

With this said, Brother Albinus was indeed a fatherly figure to many of us. He was one of the few persons in our recent history who had managed to influence and change the lives of so many people.

In short, if he had not closely and strictly guided us by nurturing and imposing strict discipline and moral values, we would not have been what we are today. I dare say that none of his former students, however naughty and rebellious they were, would disagree with this.

Abai was a legendary teacher who carried out his work with passion, commitment and dedication.

He was born Michael O’Flaherty in Ballyhoneen, County Kerry in Ireland on May 23, 1930.

In 1944 at the age of 14, he joined the La Salle Brothers and took on the name Brother Albinus. At 21, he set sail for Singapore where he started teaching at St Joseph’s Institute and in 1958, he returned to Ireland to study for an English Literature degree.

After graduation two years later, Abai taught in Sarawak for 10 years at St Joseph’s Secondary School, Kuching. After that he was posted to Sacred Heart where he served for 17 years until 1987.

He was a teacher for one year at the school and then became its principal.

Abai exemplified the Christian spirit of universal love and care for the poor, the weak and the disadvantaged in keeping with the spirit of John Baptist De La Salle, the founder of the De La Salle Brothers who successfully raised the job of teaching to an esteemed profession and vocation.

Abai was also a man of God who lived, walked and carried out his work by faith. It was by faith that the things he hoped for in life were substantiated.

This has been confirmed by the testimony of the changes he brought about to all his students. Through his selfless work, Abai had instilled the spirit in all his students.

He continued to be passionately involved in education by assisting the less fortunate after his retirement from Sacred Heart School. Indeed he remained active to his last days.

In 2002 he founded the Yayasan La Sallian Kuching to continue the work of the La Salle Brothers.

This project provides free tuition in English, Mathematics and Science to Standard Five and Six pupils in several rural areas in the state.

In recalling my days in Sacred Heart School, I would like to share two incidents with Abai which remains in my heart to this day.

The first happened when I was in Form Two.

One Tuesday afternoon, during the last class conducted by Brother Hycinth, Abai suddenly entered our classroom from the back door. He fiercely ordered all the students to stay back after the class was over.

When he returned, he ordered us to put our school bags on our tables and put our hands behind out backs.

The moment he said that he was going to search our bags, I began shivering with fear because mine contained something which Abai surely would not like to see — a love letter that I was going to post to my pen pal.

I must make a confession here that while Abai was busy searching the bags of fellow classmates in front of me, I managed to take out the letter and hid it in the back pocket of my trousers.

But I still did not escape his “watch list” as he pinpointed seven or eight of us and told us to stay back while the rest could go home.

He then read out our “sin” of escaping extra class on the previous Saturday.

We later found out that a classmate, who was a school prefect, had betrayed us by informing Abai that we skipped the extra class in order to go to Bintangor and Sarikei to visit our female pen pals and radio request friends.

We were given a stern warning and told to see Abai in his office the next day where we were each given a few strokes of the cane.

I must also admitted that the Sarikei pen pal to whom the love letter was intended for, later became my wife!

The second incident happened when I was in Form Four during an extra class in the afternoon.

At about 4.30pm we decided to arm-wrestle to decide who among us naughty boys was the strongest.

While Clement Hii (now a Tan Sri) and his challenger were hard at it, and we were cheering them on, Abai suddenly appeared from nowhere.

We gave way to Abai who was towering over us, but the two wrestlers did not notice him until he gave them a big blow. The impact sent both of them off their feet and landed on the ground.

Surprisingly, he did not punish us the rest of us that day. Perhaps he felt that he had already excessively punished the two wrestlers by flexing his muscle.

Physical punishment was common in school those days, and Abai was famous, or rather infamous, for it. Amazingly, few students complained about receiving physical punishment from their principals or teachers.

Students also did not dare to tell their parents that they had been punished because then the elders would know they had been naughty. Anyway, it was widely accepted by parents then that their naughty children would be far better disciplined by their teachers.

Like most of us, I first feared him because he was a strict and no-nonsense educator.

However, since leaving school, Abai had been a source of inspiration, mentor, and role model and he had earned my respect more than any other teacher who crossed my life.