Some notes on the work of Father Bryan Strangman on the occasion of the dedication of the Strangman Studio, Chevalier College, Bowral, 19 September 1999

Bryan Strangman was born on 21st April 1929, on the eve of the Great Depression. He was the first child of Bill and Madge (Madeline) Strangman, also known in her later life as Lallie.

He was born with a hole in his heart which he had for the remainder of his life. In those days the medical profession had not yet developed the relatively simple corrective operation now used routinely.

Early education

Bryan and all of the children in our family - myself, my brother Terry and sister Madeline - attended St Michael's primary school in Lane Cove. Bryan was one of the first pupils enrolled at the Christian Brothers High School in Chatswood, now known as St Pius X College. He completed his Intermediate there and spent a year at St Ignatius College, Riverview, before completing his secondary studies at Douglas Park.

He was professed on 26th February 1948 and after further studies at the MSC Scholasticate at Croydon, Victoria, was ordained by Archbishop Mannix in St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne, on 25th July 1954.

Affection for the MSCs

Why he chose the MSC Order and not the Jesuits or Diocesan clergy, I do not know but I do know that in our home there was a particular affection for the MSCs. Bound copies of the Annals were in our bookcase. My father, who was a convert to Catholicism, and my mother, were keen followers of the MSC radio priest Dr Rumble who, I note, published his first book in 1929.

I can recall as a child listening to Dr Rumble's program "Radio Replies" and the way in which he said "And now - my answer to Question number five-hundred-and-thirty-six ...".

Fr Bryan spent his Priesthood of 26 years at only two MSC communities: St Mary's Towers, Douglas Park, and Chevalier College where he taught and ministered between 1960 and 1967, and again between 1970 and his death in 1980.

He died on 15 December 1980 after a deterioration in his cardiac condition brought about by work for the Vietnamese Refugee students at OLSH in the Hy Vong (Hope) community, which he had established.

How appropriate, that his grave at Douglas Park adjoins Dr Rumble's.

Different features

Most of you here today who knew and worked with my brother would have experienced different facets of his personality and career.

This is my overall memory of Bryan:

He was innovative and imaginative and immersed himself in projects where he generally sought an extra-ordinary outcome in what were - on the surface - ordinary activities. He looked for an opportunity of interlaying a religious, educational, or cultural dimension in those projects. There was never only a simple excursion or trip - these were 'voyages of discovery'.

He strove to develop the balanced person. Preaching in 1970 at St Francis Xavier Cathedral in Wollongong on the occasion of the Cook Bi-centenary he said:

"Wherever you are, in politics, education, law, professions and trades of all kinds, religious and civic work, at home or at leisure, you have to present yourself as the truly integrated person, the wise man, the man of faith and commitment ... The important thing is that your 'word', your 'spirit' is the spirit of God. All things else will fall in their place in this land of the Holy Spirit, this Australia, if you and I each value what the Bible calls Wisdom's 'unambiguous command', 'touching the sky, yet treading the earth', a beautiful way of expressing the perfect integration of time and eternity, matter and spirit, man and God."

He was ahead of his time; he gravitated towards those who were disadvantaged; he was a conservative - in the best sense of the word - and orthodox; and quite often he was probably a 'loner', regarded by some as a maverick who could be tolerated, as long as he didn't succeed in turning the Order completely on its head.

But he also had first-rate political and organisational skills. People were drawn to support him because of his commitment, enthusiasm, and logical persuasion. He looked for allies and supporters and encouraged those who responded to the call of whatever project currently occupied his energies.

His commitment was absolute. When he was deteriorating rapidly in December 1980 in Bowral Hospital he somehow managed to leave his bed and reach a telephone where he relayed instructions of jobs that had to be done at the Hy Vong community.

Ahead of his time

As an example of how he was ahead of his time there is probably a file of correspondence during the 1960s in one of the major electronic corporations in Japan of letters from a Father Strangman in Australia pointing out the great potential of video for educational purposes and his wish to assist with any trials that they might be considering. There is probably also a similar file in the archives at Kensington as he tried to educate or convince a bemused Provincial of the need for the MSCs to get in on the ground floor.

He always had this innovative interest in technical things and I think this came from his father and his uncles.

Technical influence

Bill, our father, and his brother Richard, established the first electrical shop on Sydney's North Shore. The home I grew up in at Lane Cove, and which Bryan lived in during the War years, was one of the first all-electric houses in Sydney. Richard, his uncle, imported a state of the art postcard printing machine from Germany in the 1920s which he was still using in 1969 when he died. George, the other uncle, was lecturing in air navigation at Calshot in the United Kingdom, and working on pioneering developments in radio navigation, when he was killed in an air crash in 1937.

In today's times the three of them would probably have established one of the first Internet Service Provider firms in Australia, or would have been rivals to Harvey Norman.

Technical things didn't faze Father Bryan. For many years he screened the weekly films at Chevalier and I can recall being invited up to the projection box and seeing him manipulating two projectors and various arc lights.

He was also ahead of his time in seeing the potential for outdoor education as part of the secondary curriculum. His involvement with the Duke of Edinburgh's Award Scheme, Barralier and later, Yerranderie, all bear testimony to this.

He pioneered interstate travel excursions for students at Chevalier, travelling to areas not previously reached by school groups. Other people saw the Ord River as an irrigation scheme. Bryan saw it as a suitable destination for one of his tour groups.

A voice for the Lay Brothers

He gravitated towards those who were disadvantaged or lacked a voice in some way. In the late 1960s, while he was involved with the formation of Lay Brothers of the Order at Douglas Park, he took it upon himself to champion their role in the new structures being discussed within the MSCs.

He was conservative and orthodox and frowned on those who were attracted by passing fads and fashions. He despaired of trends developing in the Church in the 1960s and in 1969 he volunteered for formation work in PNG believing that he might be distanced from those trends but the next year he was posted to Chevalier.

He would have been a strong supporter of the current Pope, just as he admired Cardinal Mindzenty in earlier years. He read the weekly edition of the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano throughly.

He followed my political involvement as much as he could and whenever he came across an item that might be useful he would post it off. There are probably things he sent me that eventually found their way into speech notes I prepared for the DLP Senators or Senator Brian Harradine in the first four years (1976-1980) of the sixteen years I worked as his secretary. He also sent clippings to Bob Santamaria.

Father Bryan found a home in the Focolare religious movement, which had been established during the War years by Chiara Lubich of Italy. He promoted the youth wing, the Gen organisation, and at the yearly Mariapolis in Ballarat or Kilmore he also brought to bear his innovative and organisational skills.

Development of cultural interests

I am not sure that he developed his cultural and literary interests from within the home environment. As I have indicated earlier, our father had more of a technical approach. I suspect Bryan's interest in the theatre, music, literature, and art, might have originated in the year he spent at Riverview and was fostered when he joined the Order. While at Croydon he produced plays involving his fellow Seminarians. He wrote to his father asking for a light-dimmer, so that he could use it in one of the plays. When we visited him at Croydon free time in the city was occupied in going to the Art Gallery or similar institution.

I know also that he had occasional discussions, while at Croydon, with the artist William Ricketts who created many kiln-fired clay sculptures of aboriginal figures at his bush sanctuary in the Dandenong Ranges. It was said of Rickett's sanctuary in the Mountain Ash forest that it was "the perfect place for his blending of the natural and spiritual realms", which I believe is what Father Bryan also attempted to do at Barralier and Yerranderie.

My memories of the Monastery at Croydon consist of a sweeping gravel drive, a beautifully crafted model ship in the visitors' parlour, a huge hole dug in the ground by the students for a swimming pool, the guest house we stayed at, the weekly market, and ... visits to the William Ricketts Sanctuary.

A letter to home in 1954

Here is an excerpt from a letter home that I found among my mother's papers. This was written in June 1954 a month before his Ordination and what proved to be only two weeks before his father's death because that was a great tragedy - after seven years separation from the family studying to be a Priest, Bill never saw his son ordained.

Father Bryan wrote to everyone at Lane Cove:

"You don't know how happy I'll be to be back with (you) enjoying the home life just as I left it - all the little things I have seen so little of which are so common to you have assumed great proportions to me.

"To sit in the lounge-room after tea, to have meals with you - I've almost forgotten the good old days when even a piece of toast was a treat on Saturday nights, to say Mass at St Michael's, even to walk through (Lane Cove) Terminus will bring a tremendous joy to me.

"So you see I want you all to be just as I left you, the home routine no different, the homework still a necessity, the kids going off to school - all these things I'm so much looking forward to. Then of course I'll do my share - what we'll talk about will have no end. And I'll give you a concert and do all my Shakespeare for you and play the piano, and we'll have a picnic, and we'll go to the Genesians (a Catholic theatre group in Sydney), and I'll talk all day to Madeline about Art and Literature and Den too will share his interests. Sometimes we'll be interrupted by callers but they have their claims because it is 'Sacerdotium Populi' don't forget." By that he meant that the newly ordained Priest was required to mix with the people.

And if anyone wanted to give him a commemorative present he helpfully suggested in his letter that they might consider a complete volume of Beethoven's Piano Sonatas, or Ronald Watkin's "Moonlight at the Globe" which was an essay on a Shakespeare production at Harrow.

I think the die was set for the next twenty-six years: loyalty to the family, planning, fun, regard for others, and a broad cultural sweep. But it was probably being set even earlier. At age 10 years in Fifth Grade at the Brothers in 1939 his mid-year Term Report gave him 100% for Religion, 100% for Reading, 90% for Art and only 70% for Arithmetic.

Later, he developed an interest in Latin and French, teaching French to students and participating in the Alliance Francaise, and while at Chevalier he once conducted a marriage ceremony in French.

A canny eye for bargains

He had a canny eye for a bargain but sometimes they involved extra work. At one stage he had me making representations on behalf of Senator Harradine to the United States Embassy for technical manuals for an ex-US military VHF radio transmitter that he had bought but couldn't get working.

I cannot vouch for this 100% but I was told that some nuns were reported to have said: "Here comes Father Strangman, is everything nailed down?"

If you had the potential to help out then he didn't mind pressing you into service. An MSC Bishop from PNG once told him about the tardiness of the Australian Defence Department in agreeing to compensation for a wartime oil storage facility located on Mission property. A short while later a puzzled Minister, Jim Killen - whose office was next door to mine - received representations about compensation for an obscure oil storage facility!

The Metropolitan Water and Sewerage Board headquarters in Sydney were also puzzled to receive representations from diverse sources about access to property in Yerranderie. I believe the file was several inches thick. They, of all people, should have known about the tactic of a steady trickle of water eventually wearing a path through stone.

Purchased books and paintings

I cannot throw much light on his collection of paintings. I do know that when he came to Chevalier in 1960 he set about enlarging and stocking the Library. He had my sister Madeline typing the index cards in the Dewey system. He also sought secondhand books for an Australiana collection, which also included maps and sketches.

In 1971 he sent me a catalogue from Mann's Bookshop in Clarence Street, Sydney, with the notation "Remember how I told you that books are better than real estate!" He had marked several that I should consider buying, including a set of 40 bound volumes of the Bulletin magazine published between 1937-1958, for $150.

So, he may have bought the Llewelyn Jones paintings as an investment because, as Father Franzmann has noted, he did sell some paintings to finance other of his projects. Or, he might have recognised them as an investment if they had been given to him. Our uncle, Richard, had died in 1969 and his estate had been divided between myself, Fr Bryan, Terry, and Madeline, so he may have had some money to utilise in purchasing things for the Library.

Involved people in his projects

Father Bryan was great at inveighling people into working on his projects. My brother-in-law Boyd Aiken recalls Fr Bryan once saying to him that he looked like he needed a few days holiday. The "holiday" turned out to be a joint working expedition with my brother Terry helping to transport ex-Army huts to Barralier with the wheels of the second-hand fire engine, used to transport the frames, precariously overhanging a cliff!

He delighted in the outdoors. Holiday time for him was divided between a few days with the family and a few days trekking through the bush. He is reported to have looked up at the sky when he was being wheeled out of Bowral Hospital on 15 December 1980 for transportation by ambulance to Westmead Hospital, and to have said "What a beautiful day to die".

I think I speak for everyone in my family in saying that we are very pleased that the windfall from this strange and fortuitous re-discovery of the paintings is being put to use for something that will have a lasting benefit for students at Chevalier College where Father Bryan spent the greater part of his Priestly Ministry

Denis Strangman

Canberra.

Return to photos taken at dedication ceremony.