An apprentice at Yallourn 1939-1944 by Alex McAllister (YHS 1935)
An apprenticeship was a period of training undertaken by young people between the age of 16 & 21 years to qualify as a tradesman or tradeswoman in their preferred occupation. I attended the Yallourn Higher Elementary School and as I had visions of eventually going to sea as a ship’s engineer and the minimum qualification required was that you had served an apprenticeship in a heavy industry as a fitter, I applied for an apprenticeship with the SEC.
At that time, I was 15 years of age and in Year 10 (C form). I would be 16 in 1939, the required age to commence an apprenticeship no problem; the other requirement was to get a reasonable pass mark in the Intermediate examination at the end of the year may be a problem. However, I managed that and was called up for an interview, then offered an apprenticeship which bound me to remain with the SEC for a period of five years, during which time I would carry out all duties assigned to me Monday to Friday 8am to 5pm and Saturday 8am to 12noon for the princely sum of 15 shillings per week for the first year, 20 shillings per week for the second year, 30 shillings for the third year, 50 shillings for the fourth year and 63 shillings for the fifth year after which I would be paid 7 pounds per week as a fitter. My father was also bound by the apprenticeship agreement to keep me clothed, fed and medically fit during the period of the apprenticeship.
I commenced my apprenticeship on 9 January 1939, where I was assigned to a fitter in the boiler houses of the power station – there were two sets of boiler stations – A Station & B Station providing steam 220 PSI (very low by today’s standard) to the turbines driving the alternators. A Station was the older of the two having boilers fitted with continuous rotating chain grates where the coal was fed in at one end of the furnace and travelled burning on the chain to the lower end of the furnace and dumped as ash into a water filled drain and carried outside the boiler room. Those in B Station had step grates where the grate was divided into sections; each section moved backwards and forwards and was inclined, the coal fed onto the grate at the high end and burnt while being shaken down to the low end where, as ash again, it was dumped into a water filled drain. The work here was mainly maintenance of the grates and pipework. After some time there, I was transferred to the turbine room. I am reasonably sure there were twelve turbines driving alternators, one modern turbine and alternator would have a generating capacity in excess of the total output of them all. Again, I was assigned to a fitter to carry out maintenance on the turbines and ancillary machinery. My next move was to the central workshops where we were taught to use lathes, shapers, drills and milling machines. My next move was to the Open Cut and with the war being on, due to the shortage of fitters, we were given a trades assistant and sent out on maintenance on all the coal handling plant and if it was something you were doubtful about, you talked it over with the leading hand. I spent some time up on the old coal mine where we had several steam locomotives to maintain. To get to this section of the SEC operation, I rode a push bike to the technical college, then on to a bicycle track which went all the way to the main gate.
My final move was to the briquette factory where I finished my apprenticeship and as the war was still on, I worked for some time as a fitter before obtaining a position with a shipping company as a junior engineer. I remained at sea for seven and a half years, then came ashore as an engineer at Fremantle Power Station, changed jobs a couple of times and finished up as a Chief Marine Surveyor with the WA Government Marine Authority.
I cannot fault the training we were given during my time as an apprentice. In addition to the onjob training, we were required to attend night classes two nights per week at the technical college and were allowed half a day a week off to attend classes. We had some excellent lecturers. I particularly remember Messrs Miller who took us for workshop practice, Tyrell for mathematics (algebra, geometry and trigonometry) and Jones for thermodynamics. It was called heat engines then and applied mechanics – I owe all of them. If you did not succeed with that lot, you did not deserve to.