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Yamba cafe serves town’s history

Owner of Yamba’s Caperberry Cafe Mary Drum, is happy to share Yamba’s history with a collage of old photographs displayed on her new laminated tables. Bottom: One of the CVC historical information displays, positioned beside the pedestrian crossing in Coldstream Street. Image: Lynne Mowbray.
  Lynne Mowbray If you’re enjoying a coffee or meal at Yamba’s Caperberry Cafe, you will now experience a trip down memory lane. The cafe’s new laminated tables display a collage of historical photographs of the town. Caperberry owner Mary Drum said that she has owned the cafe on the corner of Yamba and Coldstream Streets, for the last five years. “I lived in Yamba as a child and would often visit this store and now I own it,” said Ms Drum. “Back then it was a mixed business selling souvenirs and fruit and vegies etc. “The only places you could get food was at Watsons on the top of the hill or Flanagan’s, down here at the bottom of the hill. “There were three grocery stores, a bakery and a petrol station in Yamba Street and Coldstream Street was all residential buildings. “After school and on weekends I worked at the Blue Dolphin and made friends with many of the guests who were regular visitors to Yamba. “Decades later I am meeting those same people in my cafe, with their children and grandchildren and quite often they ask me if something from a previous visit, is still around. “When the Clarence Valley Council [CVC] did the street redevelopment [a few years ago] they also put up historical photographic plaques of the history of Yamba on each corner. “Yamba has a natural beauty here with our beaches and river and we are surrounded by national parks and we can’t really be over run. That’s what keeps drawing people here. “It’s wonderful to celebrate both our natural beauty as well as our history. “Last year I worked with Marea Buist from the Yamba Museum and we obtained some of the better quality old black and white photographs and created a laminate sealed photographic collage on our table tops. “It lovely to hear the comments from our visitors when they spot the old photos,” she said.