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Dr. Meredith Fletcher wrote 'Digging up People for Coal" for her PhD thesis. A requirement was that it advanced knowledge, that it be 100,000 words and because she is working full time, that it be finished within 8 years.
Meredith has a special interest in the history of towns and she chose Yallourn because
it had a definite beginning and an end. It was a beautifully planned town and there was something special about it.
Former residents spoke of it with great affection and whenever they met, they reminisced. She wrote this history as an outsider, her only visit to Yallourn was as a Grade five student and she has no clear memories of this excursion.
Meredith's background reading was on the history of towns and how others had written about them. Her primary sources of research were the S.E.C. (State Electricity Commission) archives when they were located at Monash House. The basement was an historian's delight. There were rows and rows of four door filing cabinets with more four door cabinets on top all with planning and development documents. There
were great stacks of letters from architects, landscapers, and residents, plans of houses, meetings, deputations and reports. Every phase of the town was documented. Usually there is little documentation on town development; it would mainly be Council applications for buildings.
Newspapers are usually a main source of information but the ''Live Wire" was not very useful. It was owned by the S.E.C, and was their tool. The General Superintendent censored it and it did not report strikes, industrial accidents or anything detrimental to the S.E.C. The short lived and spunky "Electric Spark" at
Yallourn North described the 1926 3 week strike, which was about a 44 hour week. This paper ceased after seventeen months due to a lack of advertising income. Oral histories from former residents, Koro Collins writings, and Reg Stephen's diary, Royal Commission papers, and metropolitan newspapers were all reference sources.
In 1920 the Government appointed Sir John Monash to be the first General Manager of the new State Electricity Commission of Victoria, which was to ensure a reliable electricity supply for Victoria. This was to be a history of idealism and of modernity. The noted architect, Le Corbusier, loved mass production and he believed that houses were machines to live in. Yallourn was a machine with the Open Cut and Power Station as the central components to Latrobe Valley town planning.
After the horrors of World War I the main issue was idealism. Yallourn was to be a Model Garden town; residence here would be ideal. It would be a Company town with a model work force. The General Superintendent could keep control of the coalfields below, and agitators and hoboes would not live here.
The mostly weatherboard houses would have 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and living room, with water in the kitchen, bathroom and laundry. At this time in Richmond (Melbourne) some houses would not have even had water taps in the backyard.
However, the costs of building these model houses were really too high and workers could not afford the rent. As a consequence many workers built huts and shanties out of kerosene tins and packing cases in the Haunted llills, and at the Brown Coal Mine they had no water supply. There was one strike because a man was dismissed for something not related to his work. He was living in a cheap house and the S.E.C.
asked him to move to Yalloum. He refused to because he could not afford the rent.
On 14th February, 1944 a burn off north of Yallourn burnt to Hernes Oak, Yallourn, and then swept through to Morwell. Thirteen people died, and the Open Cut caught alight and burned for some days. This put Victoria's electricity supply at risk. Judge Stretton had conducted the Royal Commission into the disastrous 1939 fires and he was appointed to enquire into the cause of the Open Cut fire. This Royal Commission also enquired into the conditions in Yallourn. Judge Stretton wrote about the gardens,
good housing, power and water supplies, he also wrote about the pervading coal dust and the nauseating stench from the nearby paper mill. He concluded there was no freedom, free air or independence at Yallourn. Things changed rapidly after this report.
Meredith's post war research is a history of the Latrobe Valley based on information contained in planning documents, industrial documents and the confidential files of Brigadier Field.
The insatiable demand for electricity led to shifting dynamics. Moe, Morwell and Traralgon were country towns supporting the agriculture and timber industries until the S.E.C. created an industrial region focused on power generation with stations at Hazelwood, Yallourn 'lV' and Loy Yang. Morwell became the heart of the Latrobe Valley and most workers lived outside of Yallourn. The Housing Commission could
provide houses and Yallourn was no longer needed for housing, especially as the town maintenance costs soared.
It took two decades to develop Yallourn and two decades to demolish and destroy it, despite the commitment of its residents.
The chorus of John Wolfe's "Yallourn" is:
Yallourn, Yallourn, town where I was born,
In the Valley of Lignite Coal,
Nothing is left of old Yallourn
But a big black empty hole
Yallourn did become a hole in the ground, it has ceased to exist, but it isn't dead. Residents resurrect, re-invent, remember and re-create Yallourn as a Brigadoon, which starred for a day and disappeared.
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