This lovely lady was born and grew up at Rouchel before            marrying a young fella just down the road and living in the Upper Hunter Shire until just a few years ago when she moved to Muswellbrook to be closer to family. 

Mrs Lambley is one of those well-known women who is always working behind the scenes at Scone Arts and Crafts Centre to provide the artistic and creative front it does. 

Last week, Mrs Lambley and her co-volunteers spent hours down at the centre preparing and hanging works for the 50th Scone Art Prize, then officiating the opening night on Friday and this week she’d be down their helping to man the exhibition. 

Whether it’s her own personal passion for art or her will to put back into her home community, the loyal worker is usually found among the prints and paintings. 

Mrs Lambley has loved to draw since she was a young girl, but due to living out of town she never really got the opportunity to develop her talents in the field until she was older. 

Being the daughter of a country family with one brother and two much younger sisters, Mrs Lambley was the one who stayed at home and helped her father George Bradley run the Rouchel Brook store and post office. 

After being educated at Rouchel Public School and then Muswellbrook High School, Mrs Lambley moved to Sydney when she was 17-years-old to complete a secretarial course at the Metropolitan Business College at Wynyard, staying with her aunt and uncle at Burwood. 

Despite being such a big life change for the young woman, Mrs Lambley said she really enjoyed the course and it did prove beneficial in later life. 

In those days there were no supermarkets and Mr Bradley was run off his feet, so Mrs Lambley moved home to work for her father in the shop and post office, as well as helping with deliveries. 

She worked full time right through until she married her husband Les when she was 22, after which she continued  working part time. 

Les and his family lived just down the road near Broad Crossing and operated a dairy farm, so Mrs Lambley didn’t have to move very far at all. 

Throughout the early years of rearing their three children, Mrs Lambley simply worked for her father and helped on the dairy, which Les eventually took over management of.

In later years she worked for Fay Shilton in her grocery store in Aberdeen, as well as a stint working the switchboard and in the office at the historic Aberdeen Meatworks.

She also worked for Eric Barton at the Aberdeen Newsagents and was employed at the Muswellbrook Information Centre for a period of time. 

Just prior to her retirement when she turned 64, Mrs Lambley worked in the office at Glenbawn Dam. 

Since then, she has spent a lot more time doing what she loves – art, and has obviously become quite involved in the administrative side of the centre.

Although she can paint in a large range of mediums, watercolour is Mrs Lambley’s “first love” and she has exhibited many works in local exhibitions including a collection of her own, Member’s Exhibitions, as well as in Singleton, Muswellbrook, Gunnedah, Tamworth and Bingara.

She currently has two watercolour paintings and three miniature works in the Art Prize, but in the past she has won more than 20 awards for her creative works.

One of her works, ‘Water View 2’ won first prize in the miniatures section of the prize.

When her children had grown up and left home, Mrs Lambley found the time to indulge in her own interests of drawing and painting. 

Through the encouragement and tutorship of then local woman Gillian Hook, about 30 years ago Mrs Lambley started to embrace her artistic focus more seriously and started taking part in watercolour painting workshops. 

Since then she has created hundreds of pieces of work and met a lot of people through exhibitions and classes, especially since joining the Scone Arts and Crafts about 20 years ago. 

The strong member served as secretary for about six years and is currently the exhibition coordinator, however she says she is never alone in what she does. 

“It’s a joint thing, it’s never just one person doing everything,” Mrs Lambley said. 

One of Mrs Lambley’s key roles these days is coordinating children’s art classes, with her big event being the Pursche Family Children and Youth Workshop and Exhibition for school children. 

Mrs Lambley said she enjoys developing and nurturing art in children and as well as running the exhibition she tutors the watercolour section of the workshop. 

In years gone by, Mrs Lambley travelled to paint in the Macquarie Marsh Collection on Willie Station near Warren with Murrurundi artist Jean Davies.

Mrs Lambley said she has made a lot of friends through art and her involvement has helped her through a lot of times in her own life. 

“I like the pleasure of painting, but I am ready to step back from the organisation a bit now.

“We need people to take a role and responsibility, unless               people step up it may not be here when they want it,” she said. 

“There is a limit to what you can do when you get older.”

When asked what motivates her, Mrs Lambley said the vision of the people that originally bought the building and renovated it, and the fact that it is such a fantastic venue that needs to be maintained in the community.