ABOVE: Ken and Nancy Stubbings at the front door of the shop in Urbenville.
Susanna Freymark
A lone mannequin, still wearing a Santa hat, stands in the empty shop on the main drag through Urbenville.
The once-bustling newsagency and visitor information centre run by Nancy and Ken Stubbings has been closed since June last year and is up for sale.
Nancy, 70, said she has had to close the shop because of ill health.
They’re thinking of moving to Hervey Bay to be with their daughter.
They’re not sure.
It’s a difficult decision. They’ve run the shop since the 1980s.
“We came here in August 1981. I came from Bonalbo,” Nancy said.
Ken worked at the sawmill. There were four sawmills in Urbenville back then.
Nancy worked at the Urbenville School for a while.
“We saw the newsagency was for sale so we put an offer in,” Nancy said.
The shop was a newsagency for six years before it became a visitor information centre.
When the butcher across the road closed down, Nancy started selling meat.
“The butcher used to walk from Woodenbong every day,” she said.
Ken and Nancy lived out the back of the shop where they raised their two children Nathan and Althea.
“We started doing takeaway,” Nancy said.
They cooked the hamburgers and other food on a Rayburn wood stove, Ken said.
They continued to diversify – bringing pinball machines in for the kids and hiring out videos.
In 2005, Nancy and Ken bought the post office.
With the closing of the visitor information centre, the post office has moved to the general store across the road.
Running the shop had its ups and downs.
“We were robbed a couple of times,” Nancy said.
“Once I heard a rattle and he was going out the door with the till. I shouted, Bring that bloody till back.”
Ken was at the pub and came running to help, she said
The till was dumped behind the butcher shop.
There were happy moments too.
“We sold a $10,000 scratchie to Fred,” Ken said.
The memories made in the shop are part of Urbenville’s history. What a new buyer will do with the place remains to be seen.
The four-bedroom house with shopfront is for sale for $350,000 with PRD Kyogle.
