“People were hugging me in the main street and telling me how great it would be to have a real community newspaper again.”
Forty years after the paper’s first edition hit the streets on 11 July 1979, the Mountain Views Mail team has a high benchmark to uphold.
The first front page featured photographs by Colleen Miller and artist Kate Bill’s impressions of a future Healesville Railway station.
Reflecting on how it all came about, late founding editor and eventual owner Mardie Lambert remembered feeling totally whacked before that first edition even hit the streets.
It was a state she quickly became accustomed to, but the community response was worth it.
“The reception Mountain Views was given in Healesville was close to ecstatic,” she said in an article celebrating the paper’s 10th birthday.
“So many people were barracking for us.
“We had had so many hundreds of callers wishing us well before the event, and congratulating us after the first edition came out on 11 July.
“We felt all the blood, sweat and tears had been worthwhile.”
Mardie was a stringer for the Lilydale Express from 1972, getting paid four cents a line for whatever got published.
“People used to say to me ‘oh it’s all right, but it isn’t the same as having your own local paper’,” she said.
“People in Healesville were used to having their own newspaper.
“In fact in the 1960s they had two papers – The Guardian and The News.
“That’s why when Arthur Daws, the then-Healesville newsagent, approached me to edit a new newspaper I accepted.”
“We opened the doors to our first newspaper office on Monday 2 July.”
Healesville Council acting chairman David Tan welcomed the paper at the 26 June 1979 council meeting.
The council resolved to “to acknowledge the introduction of the new newspaper; wish the proprietors well with their venture; and use the facility of the paper as may be appropriate”.
Times were tough and after three years, Mr Daws reluctantly pulled out and the paper was handed to a group of supporters who became shareholders.
It was always envisaged the paper would cover the Upper Yarra Shire and in mid-1980 Veronica Nicolandos (Groat) joined the team to cover the Warburton Highway communities.
Veronica became editor in 1994, Fran Henke followed and Mardie returned in 1991 to see the paper through to 1996 when, after battling through hard times for many years, it went into liquidation.
That was not the end of the story for the Mail, which was given another chance to flourish under Geoff Heyes’ and Hartley Higgins’ ownership.
They first published the Upper Yarra Mail, its name adopted from the former title Warburton Mail.
“It was not an easy decision for the Lamberts to sell,” Mr Higgins said.
“Geoff and I gave Mardie and Harry the undertaking that we would keep an office in Healesville and publish a positive and professionally-produced newspaper.
“This undertaking was very much in our minds when Geoff Heyes left the partnership and it was decided to ask Paul Thomas and his Star News Group in 2002 to join us at Yarra Valley Newspapers.”
Mr Thomas, Star News Group’s managing director, said Star took on producing the papers shortly after forming the partnership.
“The masthead was kept the same but there was a significant change paper-wide,” he said.
But the content remained focused on local news, as it does today.
“We have always tried to be relevant, with an emphasis on local people,” he said.
