The Waimate Rugby Football Club's first female life member,
Stella Chamberlain, has finally given up washing the senior
team's jerseys. Photo by Sally Rae.
88-year-old Stella Chamberlain is passionate about the
Waimate Rugby Football Club.
She has washed the senior team's jerseys for about 30 years,
hanging them neatly on the neighbour's clothesline in
numerical order, using matching clothes pegs.
And there was no new-fangled technology for Mrs Chamberlain,
who meticulously washed the jerseys using her wringer washing
machine.
Only this year has she given away the job, because of failing
eyesight, handing the task down to daughter Judy - along with
the wringer as her family have bought her an automatic
machine.
Not that she was overwhelmed by the new machine - "it's all
right, I'm going to get used to it" - and she reckoned the
wringer got the clothes cleaner.
Mrs Chamberlain's dedication and passion for the club has
been rewarded with the announcement this week that she has
been made the club's first female life member.
Her late husband Cyril Chamberlain, who died in 1992, was
made a life member in 1984.
Mr Chamberlain played for Waimate until 1959 and then started
coaching in 1961.
The couple had 13 children - "we bloody near had our own
rugby team", quipped one of their sons, Graeme "Chum"
Chamberlain - and the Chamberlain name is synonymous with the
rugby club, with numerous members of the family having been
involved with it.
Yesterday, surrounded by her very proud family, Mrs
Chamberlain said she had washed the jerseys "just for the
love of it".
It was a job she had enjoyed doing and she had always loved
rugby.
She got a "hell of a shock" when she heard she had been made
a life member.
There are more than a dozen scrapbooks at her home filled
with cuttings about rugby and the club and rugby photographs
on the wall.
Rugby and family have been her life.
Asked about the fortunes of this year's Waimate senior team,
Mrs Chamberlain said "they aren't going very well", despite
the fact her son Tony is the coach.
However, Tony Chamberlain was expecting the team's fortunes
to improve against Geraldine - another brother Stephen is the
Geraldine manager - in Waimate on Saturday.
And the Waimate Senior B's will be playing for a silver tray,
in memory of Cyril Chamberlain, when they play the Geraldine
Senior B's.
Mrs Chamberlain's grand-daughter Jess Bailey is secretary of
the Waimate Rugby Football Club and her husband Todd will be
playing in the Waimate Senior Bs.
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