Pat and Frank Brophy, lifelong parishioners of St Paul’s, contributed in many ways to our parish, and one of them was editing and printing the parish weekly newsletter. In part 1 of the parish history book A People Gather it is written about them:
“The other area of great service has been to the parish newsletter. Pat has been its editor for twenty five years. He has supervised and co-ordinated a roster of typists and he and Frank have taken the responsibility of photocopying the newsletter every single week in time for the weekend Masses. (Only the misbehaviour of a temperamental photocopying machine has caused an occasional delay in the provision of this service to the community.)”
Eventually they handed over this responsibility to Tina Jack. With a young family at the time, her daughters would often come along with her to the Presbytery office while she worked.
Daughter Naomi remembers the warm sun through the windows, the smell of the printing ink, and the regular swishing sound of the machine. Tina, however, has a slightly different memory – being shown the drawer of rags kept for cleaning the old, temperamental photocopier. With a little misgiving, she recognised these “cleaning cloths” were well-used large men’s white Y-front underpants! Pat and Frank were obviously early supporters of the recycling mindset. Of course Pat and Frank supervised Tina for a while, checking she knew how to spell and was trustworthy. Also… that she knew how to clean the cantankerous machine!
