History of the first “Trois Frères Cross” By Julien Durup

History of the first “Trois Frères Cross” By Julien Durup

Before the current concrete cross, the first Trois Freres Cross was a wooden one. That cross was in fact erected to commemorate the passage of Prince Philip né Prince Philippos of Greece and Denmark, a native of the island of Corfu, the spouse of Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom, on 19th October 1956.

Bishop Olivier Maradan of the Roman Catholic requested the then British Governor for permission to put up a cross on the summit of the Trois Frères Mountains. After the Governor’ consent the task for the construction was given to Brother Victor (Robert Golliard). He decided to build the huge cross with the strong and heavy capuchin wood. There is a strong possibility that the wood came from Silhouette Island provided by the Dauban family. Because at that time they were the main supplier of capuchin wood to Mahé. The cross was made in four jointed pieces of 2 posts of 13 feet and two posts of 6 feet.

The cross was designed in the Roman Catholic workshop at La Rosière but they had very few strong men to transport it on their shoulders. The most difficult job was to carry the four pieces to the peak of the Trois Frères.

Maradan had to intervene again. He requested and received from the authorities a gang of strong men labourers from the Public Works Department. Those labourers and the men from the church workshop, with the boys scouts and the young séminaristes, carried wood, cement, sand, watering can and tools to erect the cross on the peak. After completion a memorial parchment was read and signed by all those presents and sealed in the concrete base of the cross. Then a mass was celebrated by Father Blaise Favre, a capuchin friar of Switzerland. Father Blaise also filmed the journey which started at 4.30 AM on Sunday the 4th November 1956, accompanied by the fanfare of the Robert Dubuision, Seychelles’s best musician, up to the top of the main road at Sans Souci. I was told much later that the film is still in the Capuchin Headquarters in Switzerland.

The second cross was made of concrete to replace the old broken one. It was done by Cable and Wireless under the supervision of Mr. Albert Payet and was airlifted by a helicopter of the defense forces of the Seychelles.

To conclude, I would like to ask if the second cross or the coming third would still be commemorating the passage of the Duke of Battenberg (Mountbatten), or does the immortalization ceased after the life of the first wooden cross? And it would be interesting to know any surviving member of the voluntary team that helped in the process of erecting the cross?