John Lewis YHS 1954: My thanks go to David Drane for his "A Trip Around Yallourn High" as it bought back some nice memories. I am surprised David forgot about the location of room 13, as it was right next to room 12! In fact, it was set between rooms 12 and 14. Room 13 was at the end of the building block opposite the boys’ quadrangle. The next block further along, and set at right angles, was separate and made of detached prefabs with two rooms numbered 14 and 15. A similar set of prefabs parallel it, making up rooms 16 and 17. I recall that room 13 was set up as a sewing room and so in the 1950s it was mainly out of bounds for boys as the YHS curriculum was essentially streamed and arranged on gender lines. In my year the A stream boys were strictly funnelled into the ‘harder’ maths, physics and chemistry. No B, C, D, or E stream students or girls were allowed. Similarly, at that time YHS girls were expected to elect subjects like French, history, English literature, typing, commerce and sewing. No A stream boys allowed. The cooking room and room 13 were therefore places where only girls roamed. As the school population grew, exceptions were made to how the rooms were used and the year after me, on the cusp of women’s lib and changing social attitudes, schools also changed and at YHS there were girls studying in the ‘harder’ maths classes. However, before then, room 13, the sewing room, was off limits to boys. Girls only thank-you. There was an exception when I was in form 5. We boys had what we then considered the misfortune to have a double maths period first thing in the morning in room 13 with Ernie 'Underpants' Homan. I say misfortune for two reasons. First, because room 13 was set up as a sewing room it had benches instead of the desks we were used to, so writing in our books on the high benches was difficult and uncomfortable. Second, you might appreciate, even sympathise with me, that a double-maths first thing in the morning with Mr Homan was not an easy start to the day and severely taxed the concentration span of most of us. In order to get some respite from this double maths period, each week one of us would be delegated to go into room 13 before classes started and stuff the chimney of the small cream coloured wood heater with something like rags. By the time we had all marched in and seated on stools at our benches, and as Mr Homan was just nicely settling into the rhythm of his lesson, the heater would start smoking into the room. With its chimney blocked, it worked every time. After about 15 minutes or so the room would be so badly smoked up we all had to go outside. Loads of exaggerated coughing from our class helped prompt the evacuation. I remember Daryl Raggatt was a very skilled cougher. For Mr Homan’s sake, as we all made for the door, we always expressed disappointment at having to leave his lesson and suggested the heater probably needed replacement. We also ‘proved’ our concern by opening a few windows on the way out to clear the air. Once out of the room, someone like the cleaner would have to come and check out the heater before we were allowed back in. This tactic always gave us about 30 minutes of respite from that weekly double maths class.
