Yass storyteller Barry O’Mara and artist Cayla Pothan outside Tootsie Gallery Cafe, where a whopper of a story will be told next month. Photo: Sally Hopman.
As a youngster, Barry O’Mara was not a fan of history, especially the ancient times like the Roman Empire.
“When they started talking about it at school I used to put my head out the window and watch the birds,” he joked.
But Australian history, now that’s a different, better story. Today, Barry is one of the Yass Valley’s “go-to” people when it comes to that town’s rich history.
Its thriving wool industry, its prevalence of bushrangers … and, of how, rural myth has it, an elephant was buried in the town’s former swimming pool, known as the Yass Baths.
His name was Jumbo and he was the star of the circus that came into Yass in 1964. But his fame was short-lived. Seems Jumbo fell ill shortly after the circus arrived in town and died – and the town faced a problem it likely reckoned it would never face – how do you bury an elephant?
Coincidentally, at the time, the old Yass Baths were being decommissioned and, according to local folklore, under the cover of darkness, a team of workers took the elephant’s body to the pool site and buried it.
The site is where the new $50 million Yass Valley Council administrative centre, the Crago Mill precinct, is being built.
Not a lot of love was lost when the old baths were filled in, according to Barry – with no filtration system it wasn’t the cleanest of pools to float about in.
“It was nicknamed the piss pool,” he said. “Because it didn’t have any filtration, there was always algae there. They used to clean it by just scooping out the stuff with a butterfly net.”
Barry, who was only four years old when the elephant story surfaced, said he remembered his father telling him all about it.
“There was also a story about an elephant being buried under a bowling green at Albury, but I don’t know about that one,” he joked. “You shouldn’t let facts get in the way of a good story.”
After the demise of the Yass Baths, and whatever largely lay under it, the Yass community, led by community stalwart Gwen Warmington, helped raise the money to build a new pool, which remains today at the other end of town. It celebrates its 60th birthday this year.
The elephantine story, dismissed by some as wild rumour, believed by others as part of Yass’s rich trunk of history, is, according to Barry O’Mara, a great yarn.
Barry O’Mara in front of the site of the Yass Council’s new Crago Mill Precinct – also, according to local legend, the site of Jumbo the elephant’s grave. Photo: Sally Hopman.
He will tell the story of Jumbo the elephant as Yass’s contribution to the 2025 Canberra and Region Heritage Festival which runs from 18 April to 11 May.
Barry will also talk about the heritage-listed Yass River Railway Bridge and also the town’s courthouse which has witnessed more than a few colourful identities passing through its doors in its near 150-year history.
Yass artist Cayla Pothan, who runs Tootsie Gallery Cafe, will complement Barry’s stories with a series of art classes designed to illustrate his stories. An acclaimed mosaic artist, hopes are high that some of the tiles saved when the old baths were decommissioned can be found to inspire the art projects.
Unearthed Creative Art, featuring stories by Barry O’Mara and art with Cayla Pothan, will be held from 2 to 5 pm on Saturday 3 May at Tootsie, 289 Comur Street, Yass.
Bookings essential at trybooking.
