Geoff Esler YHS 1944 - Even when I was a child on a Closer Settlement Block at Callignee Sth, I was aware of the existence of Yallourn, the lights of which were visible from many places in the hills. Of course, I did not then dream of my future association of the place the district children then referred to as "You Learn at Yallourn". Living in an area that depended on kerosene lamps and wood-burning stoves, I had no inkling of the dependence of most of the country on electric power. During these depression years, dad and mum hand-milked a few cows that this hearbreak hills property sustained and to make ends meet, dad obtained part time work with the CRB. They eventually walked off the property in 1937 and moved to Gormandale where dad was ganger on a large road construction job and in 1939 to Traralgon for the benefit of our future education. I went to Traralgon HES until 1943, which only went to Form 4 (year 10) and then to Yallourn HES in 1944, which went to year 11. I turned 16 in late October that year and in December, obtained my Leaving Certificate. Other children from Traralgon to Yallourn HES that year were John O'Brien, John Mermod, Iris Caspar and Helen Williams, and we travelled by bus each day with a lot of boys to Yallourn Tech, leaving home at 8am and getting home again about 5pm. There were about 12 studying year 11 and I was glad to see that two of them - Malcolm Chamberlain and Helen Gregson - attended last year's reunion. Other names I recall at school were Ross Finlay, Lloyd Brewer, Ken Cooper and Peter Harries, and I remember that we beat the Tech at cricket that year for the first time in many years. Another boy in our class was Herb Cook from the Brown Coal Mine (Yallourn North). We travelled to school in a parlour coach with seats right across and a separate door for each row of seats, driven by Tom Piggott, later a prominent Morwell footballer. Children also sat in a seat next to Tom and one morning, travelling up the Morwell hill, one of the Tech boys reached over and turned off the ignition switch. Tom got out and checked under the bonnet but, unable to start the motor, he hitched a ride into Morwell and got a mechanic to come out. The mechanic turned on the ignition, pressed the starter and off to school we went, better late than never! Before the 1944 bush fires on February 14th, it was nothing to see dozens of kangaroos feeding on the Yallourn golf course opposite the hospital and the day of the fires, we were sent home about 2pm and as we came through Morwell Bridge towards Morwell, the fire was racing parallel to us towards Morwell, and Tom Piggott had his foot flat to the floor. The fire veered around the southern end of Morwell and across the Yinnar flats where a farmer had a crop of flax cut and drying, and the howling wind picked up burning flax which set the Strzelecki’s ablaze. The hills that night were a spectacular but terrifying sight as flames leapt high into the sky. Mr John E Menadue was headmaster at Yallourn and what a wonderful change from the headmaster at Traralgon, who was mainly the reason for so many Traralgon boys choosing to go to Yallourn Tech. I thought my association with Yallourn was just about ended until I went to work in New Guinea in 1954. On my first weekend there, a young fellow said to me, "I know you, you played football against us at Traralgon". Graham Dahlberg and I became good friends in Port Moresby. Back at Traralgon, and at a dance, I met Irma Verrall, another ex-Yallourn resident, who I hadn't seen for several years. We married in 1956 which was the best thing I ever did. Irma was a wonderful ballroom dancer, full of fun, and in later years a very good knitter. Her daughters and I often tried to talk her into entering garments in the local show, but she always resisted. Just before she died, she finished a jumper for the 21st birthday of one of our grandsons, which his mother, Heather, entered in the Wool Board section of the Foster Show, and it won at the regional judging and so now goes to the final at the Royal Melbourne to be judged against all other regional winners. We, as a family, are so proud of her and maybe, after September, Daniel will get to wear his jumper. At school in Yallourn, we spent 2 1/2 days a week at the HES and 2 1/2 days at the Tech, and I can remember sitting in school with coal dust gradually spreading across the pages of our books. At home in Traralgon, mum always wiped the clothes line with a wet rag to clean off the coal dust from Yallourn. Dad's brother, Hughie, worked for the SEC and lived in Yallourn; Irma and I were married at St John's in Yallourn, and I have a sketch of St John's hanging in my lounge for all to see. Our son, Ray, worked on the dismantling of the old powerhouse for two years and he was responsible for salvaging the old generator at the Yallourn North Museum which he showed me recently. He has a video of the story of Yallourn and the dismantling of the power house. Although I never lived at Yallourn, you can see I had an association with the old town that will stay with me forever
