BROTHER CLARENT GLYNN

Leo Glynn was born in Frankton in the Waikato, in 1914. His was a late vocation, coming at the age of 26, after a successful academic career in physics, culminating in a Master's degree in Science. Clarent would have been one of the first New Zealanders to make a study of X-ray physics, and he never lost his interest in this area of his favourite subject.

His peer group from Claremont told of many incidents where Clarent used his scientific knowledge to circumvent the rules, or to amuse his friends. Only Brother Justin was not amused (as Novicemaster, he could not afford to be!).

Clarent's teaching career led him though a number of Marist secondary schools, Tuakau, Sacred Heart College, Greymouth, Gisborne and Palmerston North, before he arrived in Suva in 1956. The story of his appointment to Suva is worth telling. It was a time of great expansion and there were just enough men to fill the spaces (no lay teachers in those days). It seems that Brother Adrian (Provincial) read out the appointments at retreat in 1955, as usual, but then rescinded the list an hour later. Then, when the list was posted, certain Brothers were asked to wait at Tuakau or Sacred Heart until their appointments were finalized. When Adrian called Tuakau to ask for Clarent he was not to be found, nor was he at Sacred Heart, since his name had been omitted completely. Clarent had in fact taken a break at his nearby home, since it seemed he was not wanted in the immediate future.

Clarent inaugurated the Physics department at Marist Brothers High School in 1959. He stocked the physics laboratory with a number of valuable items, including a van de Graaf electrostatic generator capable of storing charge at around 100,000 volts – not a task for the faint-hearted. Clarent's interest never waned: fifty years later he could be found in St Paul's community repairing the school's van de Graaf.

He was not averse to applying his knowledge and skills to constructing a lethal high voltage dog trap to put an end to nocturnal disturbances outside his bedroom.

During his first spell in Suva he sent many high achieving students on to university, and some of these reached the top of their profession in the United States and elsewhere. Years afterwards he received a copy of the 50 page CV of Brahmanand Singh who was in charge of the cardiac pharmacology department in the University of California, and had attended conferences all over the world. Brahmanand was the only straight 'A' student in the senior Cambridge examination, sitting 8 subjects of the 12 available.

Clarent remained on the staff of MBHS in Suva for ten years before returning to New Zealand for another spell at Gisborne, Lower Hutt and St Paul's College.

When he returned to Suva in 1976 he settled down to a long stay, and remained there well into his eighties, a familiar sight to many ex-students of the fifties and sixties, as well as a multitude of more recent graduates of the High School whom he had introduced to the mysteries of physics.

A wonderful man in community, full of challenging humour, never lacking in words for a quick riposte. He was a great devotee of Mary. He followed her progress from Lourdes to Fatima to Garabandal and back.