Stories

This is how the house floor plan was when the Hender family lived here between 1957 and 1965.
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When you are seven years old and at Primary School, you learn to follow instructions. This particular day was very hot and everything smelled of smoke. ‘Children you are to go straight home to your parents.’ My teacher told us after lunch. I was pleased because it was so hot and Mum would let me run under the sprinkler hose to cool down. I was only five minutes from home and as I started walking I noticed the sky was black as if it was evening. Smoke swirled around like a fairy dancing on the wind. I was the only child who lived in this direction and I wondered where all the other… more

Former Yallourn FC rover ‘Alec’ (James Alexander) Shaw passed away on Thursday, 13th November after a long battle with illness.

As a youngster, Alec was an outstanding athlete and he was regarded as a potential star in local football in the early 1950’s. Such predictions of his ability proved true when, still a teenager, Alec won the senior team award for the Most Improved Player at Yinnar Football Club in 1953. He was also a member of the victorious Yinnar team that defeated Hazelwood in the 1954 Mid Gippsland FL Grand Final.

Alec gained a reputation as a skilled rover… more

Alec writes....I have had a very fortunate life for a Tanjil South boy who rode a 28” Malvern Star bike 10 miles per day to Moe and back to catch the Yallourn bus when I was only 11…then to catch the Erica bus for two years before being picked up at the door by the Hill End bus.

George Bates and I shared the Senior Athletics Championship at Yallourn Tech in 1950. His wife, Sonja’s brother, Stan Ostlund, was well known to me at the time as were Ian Collins, Fred Marr, Colin Harvey, Bruce King, Irving Stevens, Jack Wilson, Brian Sullivan, Peter Spurrier, Trevor Whitmore, Teddy Beulke… more

YALLOURN - Sir John Monash’s workers’ utopia by Winton McColl
Yallourn, as we all know, was a wonderful town to be born in, raised, schooled and to work in. The opportunities were seemingly endless. The services were probably second to none. Quality schools, kindergarten, library, medical services, theatre, sporting facilities etc etc for both males and females. Yes, it was pretty much the utopia that Monash intended.
The sporting achievements were many. Thanks to Roger Spaull, the history of the football club is now there for us all to read, enjoy and remember. Yes, the town… more

ANDOR MESZAROS AND THE YALLOURN CENOTAPH
In April 1953 ‘The Argus’ newspaper carried the following report about the day that the Governor of Victoria Sir Dallas Brooks officially unveiled the new Cenotaph in the gardens of Yallourn…

GOVERNOR UNVEILS YALLOURN WAR MEMORIAL
“Two thousand people packed Yallourn's town square yesterday to watch Sir Dallas Brooks, Governor, unveil the town's war memorial. In the crowd were members of the R.S.L., C.M.F., and the S.E.C.'s own 99th Construction Squadron, and Scouts, Guides and Brownies. The £1,800 memorial, a Cenotaph, was… more

My memory of basketball in Yallourn. This was around mid 1940s when we first had the Youth Club basketball teams. The games were played on asphalt courts, which were where the Fire Station and Bus terminal were later built. Our next venue was on the ovals area, right up at the back of the tennis courts, over the road from the swimming pool. There were no facilities, like toilets, change rooms, shelters – oh so primitive in comparison with today’s facilities - still we all enjoyed our sport. We played teams from Brown Coal Mine – now Yallourn North, Moe, 2 teams from Yallourn –whites… more

Biography of C H Beanland ‘A Lifetime in Technical Education’ (Chapter 6) : Yallourn – Busy Tears in a Young School

I had chosen not to continue in the position of Acting Principal at Stawell Technical College beyond June 1932 at which time I was transferred as Acting Principal to the Technical School at Yallourn, where we rented an S.E.C. house in Ridgeway West. The previous Principal at Yallourn had asked to be relieved on the grounds of ill health and because he considered that the college had no future. The future was to prove how incorrect his expectation was.

The staff… more

Briquette Factory Explosion

1953 was my first year at School. The most vivid memory I of have of that year (apart from the vague recollections of my first year at St Therese’s) was the walk home from school on Friday 27th of March 1953 (I needed the help of the Internet to find the date – ironic as in 1953 I was using a slate and slate pencil for school work).

I was trudging along my usual route home from school (we lived in Boola Crescent, so my standard route home was along Office Place, across the Picture Theatre concourse, over past the Presbyterian Church Tennis Courts,… more