In 1925 Alec was travelling again, but this time not within Europe but to Asia, and not on official Prison Commission business but in response to an appeal by the colonial administration of Burma for his expert advice. To make the trip he had to take unpaid leave. He was not merely sacrificing his salary; he was jeopardising his pension.

On his way to Burma Paterson arranged to stop off in Ceylon to see for himself the fruits of an encounter in 1922 with that colony's Inspector-General of Police, and Toc H member, Herbert Dowbiggin. Dowbiggin had heard of Stansfeld's work and thought that therein might lie the solution to the problem of boys living on the streets in Colombo. While on leave he had called on Paterson at the Prison Commission, and on a number of occasions had been taken by him to the OBC, where he was soon convinced his intuition was right. When he had returned to his post, Dowbiggin had set up a police-run street boys’ club with seventy members ranging in age from seven to seventeen. Some lived there permanently. Sports, instruction and the promotion of self-respect took place. To counter the prevalence of knife crime, he promoted boxing, ‘maintaining that a boy who could use his fists would never use a knife again’. The Pettah Boys’ Club, as it was called, was affiliated from the beginning to the OBC, and the Singhalese motto chosen for it – ‘on the turf and under the turf we are all the same’ – was of the same import as Fratres. Alec was duly impressed. In the visitors’ book he wrote that it was ‘delightful to enter so many miles away, a club that reminds me so much of our Oxford and Bermondsey Club at home. The lads with no homes and not very regular jobs face life with a smile.