CHRISTMAS IN THE MINING CAMPS
The following article was published in the ‘Morwell Advertiser’ on the 23rd December 1921. The headline of the story was ‘Christmas Tree at Coal Mine.’
Unfortunately, the report is very difficult to read and appears to have been damaged at some time. Several key words are illegible and the entire last paragraph of this newspaper report is missing.
Note: The unreadable words and phrases in the text are shown by ************* (illegible).
It is a pity that it is impossible to read how many children attended the celebration in the hall that evening. Nevertheless, this extract is a valuable discovery in Yallourn’s social history as it tells of the Christmas celebrations at the mines nearly a century ago.
As readers will be aware, the living conditions in the mining camps in those early years were harsh, particularly in the depths of winter and summer heat waves; so such a Christmas function would have been a very special occasion for the youngsters.
It is a heart-warming story about the spirit of Christmas and the pleasure that the families, from the Brown Coal Mine (Yallourn North) and Yallourn Camps, shared around a Christmas tree in 1921.
Morwell Advertiser Friday 23rd December 1921 Page 3 CHRISTMAS TREE AT COAL MINE
The night of the year was celebrated at Brown Coal Mine on Wednesday evening when Father Christmas visited the camp to wish all a Merry Christmas.
It was arranged that he should meet the children in the Hall where he had a big tree covered with presents and presents all round him. At about 7.30 children and their parents from both Coal Mine and Yallourn Camps began to arrive.
Santa had catered for the whole of the children, in all told about ** (illegible ). It was a pleasing to see how the little ones approached him and their smiling faces when he presented each child with a handsome present he took from his bounteous store which included ********** (illegible ), carpenters sets, furniture sets, tea sets, windmills, soldiers, games, steam engines, express wagons, stockings, books, dolls, balls and numerous other good toys that children delight in.
Each child was also given a bag of lollies and peanuts, a bag of fruit and a bag of cakes for which the children each in turn heartily thanked Santa.
When he had seen that all the children present had got their due, he left a share of the things for the good children who were unable to come and see him ********************* (illegible).
Note: The print is in a poor state at this juncture of the original copy and the last paragraph is simply ‘missing.’
This article was transcribed in good faith and the only changes are in regard to font size, font style and spacing to enhance the story on the Virtual Yallourn website.
MERRY CHRISTMAS TO EVERYONE IN 2014
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