AKA BROTHER IVES PATRICK
Born: 28th July, 1926, Clontarf, Dublin, Ireland.
1943: Joined Brothers
1943: Called up. Enniskillens in Omagh, N.I.
1945: India, then Hong Kong, Singapore and Jamaica.
1949: Assington Hall, Suffolk
1950: Took his vows, then Guernsey
1952: Beulah Hill
1957: Birkfield
1959: St. Peter's, Southbourne
1969: New Zealand
1970: Oak Hill
1971: Oxford
1975: Birkfield
1977: Southsea
1978: St Mary's College, Moraga
Died: 1st March, 1981, at Alta Bates Hospital, Berkeley, California
All of us have both individual and universal memories of him. Please add yours via the comments option.
There's a brief history of him written by Brother Edmund Damian in September 1998.
Copies from Gerry Newman or Ginge Creagh. We got them from Tommy Browning.
35 comments:
Whatever is the real truth about his eye ?
roumoured to have been involved in a skirmish with native jungle fighters during his military service with the Inniskillen Fusiliers in the far east>Iwas in his boarder group from 61' to 65',and learnt eventually,after numerous canings for unknown misdeameanours, to respect his firm but fair(according to him!)method of controlling us.
However I was sad to leave his tutelage in 65',as he had become almost a substitute dad,and in his own inimitable way helped me through various family traumas Iam now aged 60,living again in Dorset,and have to date never had contact with anyone from my time at st.P's.I also played in the school approved rock band that followed the moonbreaker era at the Pavilion Ball in 64',named "Take Five",we were after much negotiation actually allowed to sing,much to Brother Elwins chagrin,and did various Chuck Berry numbers very noisily until told to pack up by the official dance band in dicky suits!Happy days!
Does anyone recall that period?
Brian
Yes indeed! I recall his arbitrary and vindictive use of corporal punishment, his various prejudices and predilections, abuse of power and betrayal of trust. It does not surprise me that many of his intimidated victims have suffered mental health issues. Discuss ...
When first I learned of Bro. Ives' demise in the US, I felt a sharp pang of regret. Not regret that he had gone to wherever it is tyrants go after death, but rather regret that I had never had an opportunity to set this unusual man straight on his tireless efforts in the sixties to make life quite unpleasant for all but his simpering sycophants.
This unfortunate human being was an odd combination of hairy-chested bully, superb rugby coach and stellar teacher. This background regret persisted until I saw the photo of him published in this blog. For the first time I saw his real name, Gregory Vincent Tracey. The photo is of a troubled man. He is not old in this picture, perhaps mid thirties, forty maybe. But what struck me was that this young Irishman, from the neutral Republic of Ireland, had inexplicably found his way into the British army during the second world war. I know from his own rare mentions of his war-time experience that he had found it traumatizing as had so many others. This chap who had initially joined the De La Salle brothers in 1943 at the age of seventeen, immediately before enlisting never had a chance to grow up as a normal Irish lad. Small wonder his development as a human being was so arrested.
That photo is of a very unhappy man.
The brothers had no business placing him in charge of children.
(There those of us, myself included, who question the wisdom of parents who put other people in charge of raising their children, but that's for another blog).
All this was not Ives' fault. Thanks to this photo I have been able to shed all the years of anger and frustration he managed to engender in me and so many others who just never measured up to Ives' extreme and bizarre standards.
I can actually imagine Ives in his later years finding it possible to mull over the way he had lived his life and the impact he had on so many vulnerable young men both for the better and the worse. That can't have been an easy thing to do.
What did I learn from Ives? Well for one thing he showed us that you don't have to be a decent human being to be a Christian, and it follows of course that you don't have to be a Christian to be a decent human being.
It turns out I never really needed to punish Ives. He was far too good at doing that for himself. And so may this wretched son of war and religion, robbed of his own life as he sought to twist ours, rest in some form of peace.
Chris Crilly 1956-67
Havelock, Québec
Sept 9th 2012
I went back to St. Peter's School some 15 years ago......looking for Bro' Ives, as I wanted him to look me in the eye( with his good one) and ask him what sort of pleasure did he get from canning my backside until he drew blood for having simply tried to see how high I could jump against the red brick wall leading down to the slope into the play area where we played kingy.... His disciplinary actions marked me and I am sure, many others for life. I wanted him to see me as a grown man and measure up the anger and despise I have nurtured for some 45 years. I am glad to read he has gone (somewhere to purge his sick sense of discipline).... Christopher Dawson) 1964-1968, Verneuil sur Seine, France, 6th April 2013
Interesting seeing the above comments about the dreaded Ives. I boarded during the O'level period for two years in 1968-9 as my parents were in the USA. It's where I became an atheist. As well as numerous canings for smoking and other trivial misdemeanours, one incident is visually imprinted on my memory.
On my last day there at the end of his post evening meal announcements, brother Ives summoned me to his office. I assumed I'd done something wrong again but walked in to find him sitting at his desk with both hands flat down in front of him. On each finger was a gold ring and he invited me to "choose one", no explanation. I pointed to one at random, just wanting to get out as soon as possible and after being presented with it I made a rapid exit.
I suppose that he must have had some kind of special interest in me and I'm just glad that he chose to keep it a secret until my last day there. It certainly didn't stop him caning me with as much gusto as everyone else.
My two years at the school were a friendless, cold time although I do fondly remember an American boy called Brian Harper who became an occasional smoking partner. I don't hold a particular grudge towards Brother Ives as I see him now as just another part of the dysfunctional Catholic church which has had such a negative effect on the development of so many young innocent people. Luckily I have been able to rise above it all and have a happy life, something Ives never managed.
I was surprised to see that Brian Thomas had such fond memories of Brother Ives. I knew Brian at school and for a time after. He didn't have such a high opinion of him then. Ives was obviously a very troubled man, quite unfit to be in charge of children.
One could fill a book with observations on his character, mostly disturbing. He was however a very gifted teacher and instilled in me a love of English Literature. I didn't have a particular problem with Ives during my time at St Peter's, I was terrified of him as most were. I am just glad that I wasn't a boarder. He lost his eye fighting the Japanese in Burma. He took a piece of shrapnel in it from a shell. He was a controlling bully, if any boy resisted his ideal he would do his utmost to break them. Although he was the most high profile of the disturbed creatures who made up the majority of the Brothers at St Peter's, he probably wasn't the most sinister.
I wonder if Brian can remember parking his motorbike at the bottom of the school fields and being ambushed by Ives when he returned to ride home on it!
I was at St.Petes from 1962 to 1969.
Everybody was scared of Bro Ives. The way to his heart was to be in the 1st Xv rugby team.
I was never caned by him, but Geoffrey Tristram and Paul Collier did. They were hard cases. The friends I had there were great and by and large hard a good time there.
I now live in Australia along with Nigel Mansfield and Alan Owen' Jim Maspero
I was at St.Petes from 1962 to 1969.
Everybody was scared of Bro Ives. The way to his heart was to be in the 1st Xv rugby team.
I was never caned by him, but Geoffrey Tristram and Paul Collier did. They were hard cases. The friends I had there were great and by and large hard a good time there.
I now live in Australia along with Nigel Mansfield and Alan Owen' Jim Maspero
I was at St Peter's 1961 - 65 and for the first 4 years Brother Ives was my Housemaster. It was an uncomfortable time of my formative years - I was scared of him. In 1964 Ives formed a refectory table for him and his sycophants - about 15-20 boys shared their meals with him. I remember some of them - Martin, Legget, Swallow, Johnson who understandably thought Ives was the bee's knees. Sad. Ives had many problems and today he would not be allowed anywhere near children. A bully and sadly a very immature man. My disappointment is for the sycophants, some of whom I gather note on social media how good Ives was for them. Awkward!
Ah yes, 1960 - 65. Parents in Germany, a long way from home.. I particularly remember his cane pocket down the front of his habit and his look that put the fear of god into a small boy. I turned rebel as a result and my school work went down-hill. It was not until the 5th form that I 'went straight'. He was a very strange individual indeed. Now at 66, after 35 years in the RAF, retired a group captain, CEO of a consultancy, PhD, MBA, I look back on that dark, unhappy time. Nevertheless, I think I learned to be compassionate to others and determination that I would not be ground-down by bullies.
I was at St. Peter's 1961-71. Memories of finding out that the dreaded and much feared bro Ives was to be our fourth form master in 1968. Prior to that I had received many a caning and still have the scar from being hit full throttle by a blackboard duster. No added vests were allowed on the rugby field during freezing weather. Fortunately I was a good fly half so escaped the full force of the rugby bullies. Once in the 4th room, bro Ives was a little more protective of his own class, but I remember well, bro lucien (who I liked) rescuing me from an Ives caning for passing a message to another boy. Fortunately things got softer in the sixth form when girls joined us from the convent. I suppose that St. Peter's prepared me well for sticking up for myself in a competitive career in the theatre. Even now some people mention that I must have had a strange time at school. I even survived formidable Mr Tristram insisting that I play a female role in the school Gilbert and sullivan- mind you, I was very good! Chemistry teacher mr collier was another strange character giving us young boys the scares and bro Edmund giving us the slipper across his lap in front of the class for incorrect Latin translation. (He'd be arrested for that now!) Some happy memories - including Mrs King teaching me piano- I kept in contact with her until her death in 2000. I still go to mass, although my brother, now emigrated to Canada with family, became an aethiest in the sixth form and thought I should follow suit. Nevertheless, I'm sure no one at at peters would have thought that I would have a successful career in theatre, - I was recently artistic director for the new curve theatre in Leicester. Now I am directing the international tour of the musical Hairspray and run the Buxton Opera House. Hairspray is coming to Bournemouth next year- maybe I will give the old school a visit, even though the ghosts of Father Poure and his frightening confessions will still be there!
I'm sorry to have found this blog so late. I wish I'd known that Gregory Vincent Tracey, who masqueraded as Brother Ives Patrick, had died in 1981. I would have celebrated the event. Now, it seems a bit late.
Like most of you, I loathed the man. Indeed, I hated him. I was in St Peter's when he arrived there in 1959 -- a tall, deep-voiced man, with a pirate-style black patch over his damaged eye and the bearing of a senior military officer. He looked intimidating, but I had a feeling that it was all an act -- and in due course, I learned that it was.
During classes, he often bragged about his "action-hero" days in Asia (I was from Singapore) against the Japanese invaders, and about how his eye was damaged in combat. He derided Asians for not doing their own fighting against the invaders. I sensed from this that the man was racist. The Japs invaded countries colonized by European powers that disallowed local militaries. All of us were "protected" by colonial militaries. We had no choice and, if Ives Patrick had half a brain, he'd have known that.
I left St Peter's after five semesters because Singapore had become self-governing and was abandoning its British-type education system in favour of a more local version (e.g. no French, Latin, or German -- just English, Malay and Mandarin). I went home to avoid being a misfit in my own country, which continued for 11 more years to be protected by British, and allied Australian and New Zealand forces, while we built out own defence capability.
Some British officers who'd been in Singapore from 1945 when the Japs surrendered lived in our neighbourhood and were family friends of ours. I showed them Ives Patrick's photo from a copy of The Rock, then St Peter's quarterly magazine. Two Captains recognised "Greg Tracey". They told me that Tracey lost his eye during basic army training in the UK when a thrown practice grenade, which failed to explode when it should have, blew up as Tracey and others approached it. He also told me that Tracey had been nothing more than a medical attendant with the British army in Asia.
I don't think Ives Patrick ever caned anyone during my time at St Peter's. But he relished insulting and humiliating non-Caucasians (of which there were about 20 then, all boarders) -- and he seemed to enjoy himself whenever he was assigned "showers duty": supervising the boarders showering. He used to leer at us and smirk.
Brother Elwin, the principal, drove me to Heathrow for my flight home. Ives Patrick actually walked up as I was entering the car with his right hand outstretched. I snubbed him and closed the door.
It was the least I could do to that man, that gift-from-hell.
Someone just put me onto this site, telling me that a fellow-Singaporean had posted something. Anonymous must have preceded my stint at St Peter's marginally, because I believe I was the only Singaporean there in 1960 as a boarder.
I share his views on Ives Patrick, that insult to the de la Salle Brotherhood.
Ives must have been just a teenager in the British army in 1945, the year the Japanese surrendered. They surrendered because the USA had brought them to their knees across the Pacific -- and, of course, with the A-bombs. They were not beaten in combat by British troops -- or single-handedly by Ives Patrick, as he often insinuated.
The British simply returned their troops to Singapore in 1945 to accept and oversee the local Japanese garrison's formal departure. (To be sure, the Brits never fought the Japanese in Malaya or Singapore; they'd promptly vacated both colonies to avoid combat.)
So Ives lied about his "war-time heroics" in Southeast Asia. And, as a teacher, he didn't amount to much of a hero either.
Boarded in 'The Lodge'58-63 / saw ex-seminarian Gibbs who joined in the fourth year ( Mr Smart Mr Wood Mr Haveron and Crystal Palace climber of Broadcasting Mast Physics teacher who promptly resigned post and was widely reported in national newspapers by Associated Press cuttings of the time)..well Gibbs who was no slouch and won the School Cross Country in '63..stood up to Ives in front of entire crowded lesson change-over ... Ives promptly attempted to floor him with two massive swipes. Indelibly etched in my memory as only being partially successful, it was the inappropriate nature of the exchange that was so shocking.
Myself, sent by the above Haveron to Ives for 'Six' or more 'of the Best' for playfully chewing and spitting horse chestnuts at Tucker and Denno from Brighton in the backrow of his boring English class. Ives promptly quizzed me with 'Well did you or didn't you do it? Tell the truth and shame the Devil ..' I immediately admitted 'Yes' and neither was I afraid of any cane. He lowered his voice and said 'Go back to class' There was no beating or recrimination.
Complex and troubled I learned many years later that his sixth form boarders were almost unduly loyal to him when on Wednesdays he would return on his motorbike following alcoholic lunches on Shotley Peninsula and would help him to his room and put his motorbike away.
I was a boarder from '56 to '61... When I left the school I had a great academic report - 8 O levels and 2 A levels and 1 S level. On my final report my academic results looked great - I was hoping to join the RAF. But at the bottom of the form there was a space for 'extra remarks'. There brother Elwin had added 'this boy is not amenable to discipline'! When I pointed out to him that this would ruin my chances with the RAF he replied that he wanted to be known as a headmaster who employers could rely on. Apparently he was not aware that employers didn't know who the hell Brother Elwin Gerard was and they couldn't care a less! Anyone reading that remark would have thought that I was some sort of juvenile deliquent - otherwise why add that voluntary 'extra remark' if there was not a very good reason! I ended up as company director and a university teacher before my retirement...
I was at St Peters from 1960 -1963. The memory of those horrible orange night lights in the first year still haunts me. I would wake up and see them and feel as if I’d been marooned on another planet. But we had a lot of fun in despite the canings, flying board dusters and smacks around the head. There are lots of memories. Balancing (sitting) on a board on a single skate down the slope to the playground of course, and pouring water down the same slope each evening to turn to ice during the big freeze in 63. Some kid being helped out of the Sunday evening film show (war of the worlds) because he was so frightened. Boys endlessly flicking propellers trying to get their model plane engines to work. Bunce rigging his electric lights up everywhere. Colman Conway getting a spear through his tongue. Pretending to faint during the endless high mass on Sundays and getting helped out by a grateful assistant. Old Gatesman climbing the communications mast when he wasn’t banging his head against the wall or rolling around moaning on the classroom floor. Brother Henri stamping to death one of the pet mice we kept in our desks. Getting told I had a ‘dangerous imagination’ when a story I wrote about a revolution in the school where all the Brothers were individually tortured to death ended up in the teachers common room. Brother Ives ‘chips’ which entitled us to leave the school grounds at weekends if we behaved, and him reading Alistair MacLean novels out loud to us before lights out. (despite all the war stories I seem to remember that he lost his eye in an accident involving his brother when he was in his teens) Mardell running away on an appropriated motor bike and running out of petrol. A lot of shoplifting , a lot of fishing and a lot of hiring out motorboats on the river. Three or four of us getting lost in the roof spaces of the old building (through the trapdoor by the linen toom) when our torch died during a midnight exploration trip. (We eventually escaped with our pyjamas filthy dirty) Probably the same three or four of us getting caught after a midnight expedition to a churchyard in Christchurch looking for ghosts on Friday the 13th. The ex-army headphones hanging by the beds and listening to ‘radio St Peters’ for half an hour after lights out. (I heard my first Beatles song on it) Pretending to join the ATC and skiving off from homework one evening a week. Brother Luke chasing me around the classroom with a cane until I gave up and used my handkerchief as a blindfold and stuck my hand out to get whacked, when he started laughing and let me off. I left in 63 to become a weekly boarder in a RC school near Exeter, where I began another series of adventures and ran away twice. I heard that Kilcawley inherited my girlfriend Sandra who lived in Tuckton.The only St Peters boy I kept in touch with was Mike Worsley who also lived in the west country. We stayed friend for life although our lives were very different. He joined the Grenadier Guards, went on into the SAS and then worked in private international security agencies. I became a hippy and made numerous trips to India before I settled down and became an outwardly normal person. Sadly Mike’s hard-drinking lifestyle eventually caught up with him and he died a couple of years ago aged 69.
I boarded at St Peters for one miserable year - 1959-60. I hated it. As many other posters have pointed out, Bro. Ives was the most fearsome creature in the place. He was very prone to violence although the patch enhanced the image of ferocity (har har, Jim Lad).
I only recall one specific incident re Ives - we are talking 62 years now.
It's an odd one. He was taking our class and asked a question along the lines of "what do you do when you greet your father?" He got a few answers, mostly "shake hands" or "hug him". Then he asked a boy (who happened to be from Colombia - hello Richard M). He responded that he would kiss his father. The rest of the class sniggered. Ives went on his high horse and said that that was the right response. Hypocrisy hardly covers it.
Just remembered that Ives came up behind me once in the refectory when we were all eating and chatting and gave me the most almighty great clout around the head without warning; apparently for the unpardonable sin of laughing too much. But he was a memorably important character during the 3 years I was at St. Peters. I remember he read out one of my stories he had found, highly amused that ‘blood poured from the wound like tea from a tea pot.’ He also discovered that I had a photo of the girl who lived next door at home, and announced in ‘The Rock’ that I had a Diana in the West Country. Actually for no particular reason this reminds me of elocution lessons with Mrs Carter, and the mesmerising effect of her Dolly Parton- esque chest when she demonstrated ‘breathing in deeply.’ I suspect that Ives’ interests lay elsewhere, but I was never one of his special boys.
I boarded at Birkfield from 1950 - 1959
In my last two years I met Bro Ives Patrick who was house master in the middle school. Our collaboration was mainly limited to the school sailing club, which he oversaw. I frankly do not recognise the blog comments about Ives. To me he was an outstanding person who did not deserve the antagonistic comments that I have just read.
"Duc in altum"
Dear Edward Purcell, Human beings can be complex creatures full of contradictions and unfathomable quirks. The fact that you were fortunate enough to know Greg Tracy (Bro. Ives) at a time when his marbles were still under his command in no way diminishes the profound trauma, misery, fear and life-long loathing that he engendered in so many of the rest of us. Do you seriously imagine that we all got together and made up this stuff?
Another teacher at SPS was Geoffrey Tristram. I knew him as a brilliant musician and choral director well before he joined the teaching staff proper. I got along very well with him (and his family too) and to this day, after a long career as composer, conductor and musician, I still feed off his friendly advice and musicianship. However, in these pages we find disturbing reference to another side of Geoffrey Tristram. Apparently, if these reports are to be believed, he was, in later life, an overbearing, brute of a man. I was disappointed, shocked, to read this, but how can I simply brush so many negative reports aside simply because I never experienced that side of the man?
Ives was once a (presumably) innocent enough child. He grew up in the shadow of that criminal organisation we call the Catholic Church. Throw in a world war (what the hell was an Irish citizen doing in the British army anyway?), religious "training" and the daily company of similarly unthinking FSC monks, and small wonder he ended up a mess. You were just lucky enough to know the man before he turned into a bully. The rest of us weren't.
Your sign off "Duc in altum", by the way, is grotesquely misplaced in this context. Exhorting us to see in our childhood encounters with this miserable gone-but-not-forgotten tyrant an opportunity for deepening of our faith might be your idea of an honourable challenge. I see it as a seriously misguided interpretation of child abuse and tyranny. Do I detect a sickening whiff of vestigial popery?
I boarded from 1968 until 1975. Received many canings and other more psychological punishments over the years. By the time I was 15 this stopped as I was bigger and stronger than most of the brothers. I have no happy memories of this institution, I live in Bournemouth and occasionally drive past the school and always feel a pang of anger as I pass
Gary Green
Boarder 1968-1975
I remember that and looking back he was grooming that elite bunch and probably paid a price for their positions
Gary Green
Boarder 1968-1975
It's a telling and chilling fact that so many of us were marked for life by the villainy of one miserable and sadistic man. It is heartening though to realise that, for some of us, it is possible to move on. Others, not so fortunate, have carried the scars inflicted by Bro. Ives/Gregory Vincent Tracey, a malformed human being, for many years into adulthood. I'm starting to see that perhaps the only path out of the lingering hatred and sadness is to see the man as not only a perpetrator of misery but also as an ill-equipped victim of his times, of war, and of that criminal enterprise known as the Catholic Church. I have certainly found a happier place to stand once I knew more of Ives' background and of his alcoholism.
Chris Crilly '56—'67 erratum
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