Words of remembrance - Solidarity with South Sudan

We are honored to share a moving and personal tribute in memory of our tireless co-founder, Brother Bill Firman, FSC, who passed away in recent weeks.

This powerful remembrance was written by his long-time friend, Allan Drummond, who served as an English teacher at the Solidarity Teacher Training College (STTC).

“I was invited, along with Jack Firman, to contribute some words of remembrance at Bill Firman’s funeral. Here is the text of what I said. On 13 January, 1962, Bill Firman and I joined a group of young men at Spencer St Station (as it was then known) all prepared to try ourselves out on the adventure of a lifetime. Included in that group were Joe Gabel, Bob French and Peter Heaney who are with us today as Brother Joe Gabel, Brother Bede French and Brother Peter Heaney, having given their lives over the last sixty three years to the work of the Brothers of the Christian Schools. Joe, Bede and Peter, we extend our condolences to you as well as to DLS Brothers in Australasia and throughout the world, who mourn the loss of one of the finest of men.

In an out of the way corner of the grounds of the Novitiate at Castle Hill was the carcass of an old Sydney tram. It was used as a plant nursery, but it also contained a few seats where Bill, myself and big, jovial, generous Bob Breen gathered regularly to discuss the unusual circumstances in which we found ourselves. It was the settling in period called the postulancy. We were breaking a few of the rules, of course, but we thought it was helping. Bill himself was a little unsettled when a letter deceived the censors and got through to him. It was signed by Carolyn Darling. Darling was NOT the lady’s surname, but a pseudonym which carried, presumably, a secret message. Bill was further unsettled when his dear mother, perhaps missing her baby boy, sent Bill a parcel wrapped in a newspaper telling how the said Carolyn had earned the title of Miss Victoria Charity Queen. Bill didn’t glide easily into the religious life like some predestined angel. He was flesh and blood. He CHOSE to become a De La Salle Brother, deliberately rejecting other promising paths which were his for the taking.

Neither Bob nor I was surprised when Bill turned up at the tram one day and said:

“This is getting us nowhere, I’m going to do it properly, or I’m going home.”

Bill did it properly from that day on, and the dedication to the religious life which followed, is at the core of everything else he achieved. He was, first and foremost, a man of vows, dedicating his talents to God via the three hundred year old mission of the De La Salle Brothers.

Bill’s first appointment, after teacher training and gaining a science degree, was to De La Salle College, Ashfield, where the principal was the genial Brother Peter Macintosh, who was receptive to nurturing young talent.

A storm descended on Ashfield. Not content with rising at 5:30 for community prayer, meditation and morning Mass; not content with a full day’s teaching load in a time when the free period had not yet been invented; and not content with coaching teams including a cricket team, which might have won the flag if Kerry O’Keefe had not been playing for Marist Brothers Kogarah; not content with all that, Bill taught himself the guitar and charmed the Sisters at the neighbouring Bethlehem College to allow the girls to join his students on Christian Living weekends. The follow up was to decorate one wall of the Brothers’ lounge area so that it became the Jungle Room: a gathering place on Sundays for his Christian Living students, with Bill preparing an evening meal for them. I have no doubt but that those young people look back on those days with the warmest of memories.

Like Kerry O’Keefe, those young people are now in their seventies.

Bill was revealing, in those early years at Ashfield, what I consider to have been one of his greatest virtues: namely Hospitality.

As Eleanor Roosevelt said:

“True hospitality consists of giving the best of yourself to your guests.”

Those of you familiar with Bill’s speeches and his reflections will know that was a bountiful distributor of quotations, as well as of generous hospitality. My guardian angel, or was it Bill, was whispering in my ear as I prepared this:

“Give them quotes! Lots of quotes!”

Bill was an excellent cook, unconfined by recipes, seeming to know exactly what goes with what. This skill was to the fore in Juba, South Sudan, where you couldn’t just run down to the supermarket to pick up whatever the recipe required. Friday nights in Juba were a delight for Solidarity members, a regular stream of visitors, and for the delightful Pauline Sisters from next door. It began with drinks and mind-bending games, followed by a generous meal carefully prepared by the servant of the servants of God. Bill found creative, welcoming ways of building up community wherever he went. But then you would expect that, wouldn’t you, for the spirit of community is an essential feature of the De La Salle spirit.

Bill came to Mentone in 1974, rejoining Brother Peter who had done a magnificent job developing the St Bede’s buildings. Taking over as principal from Peter, at the ripe old age of 31, Bill continued the building work with enthusiasm, giving particular attention to facilities for boarders. Bill had a particular affection for resident students at St Bede’s, New Plymouth in New Zealand and at Boys Town, and there have been many expressions of gratitude for this since Bill died.

There were some among his Brothers who tagged Bill as Dollar Bill, for he never seemed to have to worry about finances. Finances were something that he was just good at, again indicating that he could have been very successful in other walks of life had he chosen them. What a magnificent partnership he formed with the late Tom Velten at St Bede’s, both of them well versed in achieving the optimum benefits from the intricacies of state and federal government policy, and both of them ever ready to give time and assistance to families suffering financial stress. Making money was for a purpose, as Warren Buffet once said:

“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone else planted a tree long ago.”

Bill’s financial expertise enabled him to plant metaphorical trees everywhere he worked.

De La Salle schools are not selective schools. The Brothers, traditionally, take students as they come and work with them to develop such talents as they have. Bill regularly referred to the Parable of the Talents from St Matthew’s gospel. Well aware that he had been given more than his share of talents, Bill set about encouraging those in his care to use whatever they had to the best advantage. Facilities and the curriculum at his schools were constantly under review to allow divergent talents to be nurtured. He agreed wholeheartedly with what Leo Buscalia once said:

“Your talent is God’s gift to you. What you do with it is your gift to God.”

Talent spotting among his staff was another of Bill’s skills, and he had a remarkable ability to match a person to a job, or even to create a new one for him, or her. I’ll mention just two, hopefully not to embarrass them, but simply as good examples of the kind of creativity that Bill was capable of. At De La Salle it was noted that many junior boys had not made their first holy communion and that there was a low level of awareness of the role and richness of the sacramental life of the Catholic church. The best man to repair this problem … was a woman, and Bill had no problem in creating a position of chaplaincy for Joan Ferguson, with great benefit to the young men of the college.

At St Bede’s, Bill was way ahead of the game in seeing the need for special care for students who might be better off leaving school and looking for traditional apprenticeships. Consequently Paul Swannie was plucked out of the Consumer Education Faculty to become director of the eminently successful vocational stream.

South Sudan presented a whole new range of challenges. Bill’s admiration for the resilience and faith of the common people knew no bounds. They were experiencing inflation at the rate of three and four hundred percent, and civil war between 2013 and 2017 left 400,000 dead. The Solidarity with South Sudan team, now led by Bill as CEO decided that their role was to stay put when other NGOs were leaving. One of the Sisters was raped and another murdered in Bill’s time and he had to help people work through those tragedies. He erected buildings and he built up communities in South Sudan. He negotiated with a local chief in Rumbek, for the donation of a large piece of land to be used as a boys’ college. That property has become La Salle College, and is conducted under the direction of the De La Salle Brothers. It was Bill’s fond hope to take up a role there when his time as Solidarity CEO was ended. Poor health, however, was one factor in his returning to Australia.

There is an incident from the 1961 Associated Catholic Colleges athletic carnival that sticks in my mind and I want to leave you with. Athletics in Victoria was in excellent health in the wake of the Melbourne Olympic Games, and of Herb Elliott winning gold in Rome in 1960. The blue riband event in the ACC carnival was the mile, in which St Joseph’s North Melbourne had an outstanding runner called Ray Kelsey. Through injury, reluctance and downright refusal, De La looked like not having a runner in the event until Bill, who was a useful relay level sprinter, unconditioned for middle distance running, insisted that De La must be represented, and that he would be the one to do it. As it happened, Kelsey finished first in about 4 minutes and ten seconds, with the field stretched out in single file behind him. Our Bill was running last, a good 220 yards back. The grandstand ran the length of the 110 yard straight, packed with enthusiastic students from eight Catholic colleges. With not a hint of cynicism, they stood and clapped Bill to the finish line.

In my mind’s eye the people in the grandstand have changed. I like to think of Mamie and Jim and an extended family of deceased Firmans cheering Bill home. I can see a host of De La Salle Brothers singing Honneur a Toi. I see hundreds of past students and members of staff clapping enthusiastically. Ray Kelsey might even be waiting at the finish line for Ray, described in an obituary by old boys of North Melbourne as a Christian gentleman, beat Bill to this ultimate finish line by some nine years.

Bill has fought the good fight. He has run the race. He has kept the faith.“