Shirley Marshall YHS 1950 - wrote: I would like to say how appreciative I am for receiving the "Back to Yallourn" book so soon after the reunion. It is a great publication and one which must have entailed a large amount of work.
I do hope the reunion was successful. Unfortunately, I was unable to attend but perhaps I will be able to attend the next one. I have enclosed an application form for membership to YOGA. Although I've only had the book for a little over a week, it has evoked so many memories of growing up in Yallourn during the time my father was working at the briquette factory. The photos have prompted so many memories of a childhood where the word "boredom" would never have entered our vocabulary. There were so many activities available to us, apart from our schooling.
I have such vivid memories of:-
• Brownies, Guides & Sunday School
• Hitting a tennis ball against the wall of the theatre for hours on end. (I still play competition tennis!)
• Along with my sister and two brothers, learning to swim in the old pool, where the division between the "shallow" pool and the "big pool" was a very slimy fence.
• The wonderful library which set me on the path to a lifetime of reading.
• My mother's continual battle with the brown coal dust on her washing and, of course, us!
• Ballet lessons with Mrs Huddy and the concerts in the theatre. Piano lessons with Mrs Ross (I was usually in trouble because I hadn't done my practice).
• Buying threepence worth of broken biscuits at the General Store. If you were lucky, there could be a broken chocolate biscuit in the bag.
• Picking wildflowers in the bush between Yallourn and Hernes Oak and buying the best iceblocks I've ever tasted, at the small store in Hernes Oak.
• The Christmas parties for children of the employees at the briquette factory.
• And, of course, my days at Yallourn High School where my favourite subject was French - taught by Mr Wynd. I know that the basics of the language helped me tremendously later on in my years of working and living in French Canada.