An inspiring coach and friend
It was neither a soft shoe shuffle nor heavy footfalls but the light measured steps of her trained marching sportswomen that guided coach Maxine Murdoch on her final journey.
Uniformed members of Royal Guard, the leisure team she coached, formed charcoal and scarlet lines through which Maxine ‘‘our coach, our friend" was carried following a service led at Avenal Park by another friend, city celebrant and Town Crier, Lynley McKerrow.
Beyond her family, of whom she would always say, family first, Maxine Murdoch had two great loves, retail and marching and lifelong she enjoyed both.
Her parents, Joan and Eddie Wilson, were interested in marching and Maxine followed suit although it was ballet which she first learned and loved.
Always calm and ordered Maxine Murdoch passed away three days before Christmas on December 22, her 73rd birthday.
She’d hoped to be here for the Marching Nationals to be held in Invercargill in March but was philosophical in accepting her journey might end earlier, as it did.
Their coach to the end, she left her charges with directions, quotes and memories for a lifetime as she did her family too.
Born in Gore 1942, Maxine moved to Invercargill with her family before starting school.
Her dad worked for the Railway and they stayed at the Railway Hotel when they came to town before finding their own home in Lindisfarne St.
Travel concessions and holidays houses for railways staff meant they could go far.
Maxine could remember picking wild raspberries where now are great hotels in Queenstown streets.
After finishing school at Southland Girls’ High, Maxine did office work for a bit then realised she liked the pace and interaction of retailing and made a move she was never to regret.
Until its closure a decade ago Maxine was part of the management team at the Dee St much-missed Deka store in Invercargill, as valued for her work with young staff as for her care of the needs of customers.
She brought the same aphorism, time marches on, to work and play, the same sense of honesty and fairness, the same readiness to go the extra mile, the same awareness and understanding of the feelings of others.
This made her a popular and much loved boss, a coach of marching team winners over decades, a clever designer of costumes and choreography, a woman whose high standards were based on what she knew was right.
Generations of girls who went through the ranks of marching in Southland have shown the love and loyalty instilled by Maxine Murdoch.
In 1965, Maxine married Peter Murdoch. Maxine leaves their children - Garry, Vanessa and Brent and their partners and families, her grandchildren Dean, Jake and Lauren.