Add ups and gazintas

Daily Examiner reporter Lachlan Thompson's piece in today's paper provides proof that he's a words man and not an add ups and gazintas bloke. Check out what he wrote about Yamba Cinema's Merv Cousemacker and do the sums yourself.

End of an era for movie man

Sixty-four years ago a nine year-old boy had to fill in for his ailing uncle and change the reels on a movie film projector.

And as Yamba Cinema moves into the digital age that boy, who is now 81 years old, is sad to see his skills made redundant.

If you have watched a film in the Clarence Valley in the past five decades there is a good chance Merv Cousemacker was operating the projector.

Mr Cousemacker's uncle Jack Ellem operated a touring cinema show on the east coast during the 1930s and '40s.

One night Mr Ellem was sick with yellow jaundice and nine-year-old Merv, who had keenly watched his uncle since the age of five, stepped in to help.

There began a life-long love affair with film and projectors which resulted in Mr Cousemacker running a travelling cinema show throughout the '50s and early '60s, operate a cinema in Maclean and finally own his own in Yamba.

During the 1950s Mr Cousemacker and his wife, Elaine, travelled and put on weekly screenings, complete with newsreels in Copmanhurst, Tucabia, Glenreagh, Brushgrove, Lawrence, Ulmarra, Iluka and Red Rock.

"Until television did us out of business," Mr Cousemacker said.

During the 1970s and '80s they operated the Picture Palace in Maclean - the cinema's name is still ingrained in the pavement.

"One of my greatest memories was filling the theatre there, which seated 1200 people, twice screening Born Free," Mr Cousemacker said. 

Read the complete piece here.