By KATH GANNAWAY
TRIBUTES have poured in to the Mail following news last week of the sad passing of Mardie Lambert.
Mardie, the founding editor and part owner of Mountain Views Newspaper, died on Tuesday, 19 July, 2016, at Holmwood Nursing Home. She was 86 years old.
Tributes online and on the Mail and Growing Up In Healesville Facebook pages reflect the impact she had on the Healesville and wider community as a staunch and generous community member, journalist and employer.
Mardie’s passion for establishing a truly community-based newspaper in Healesville, and the wider Yarra Valley, and the hard work and energy she invested to put the paper on the street week after week, made her a household name.
To Mountain Views readers and to the readers in the making, she was known simply as ‘Mardie’.
The first edition of Mountain Views on 11 July, 1979, was eagerly awaited and reflecting some years later on how it all came about, Mardie wrote of the struggle to get support for a new paper in the town and the rewards.
“So many people were barracking for us,” she wrote.
She recalled the reception that first edition was given in Healesville as “close to ecstatic” and said people were hugging her in the main street, delighted to have a real community newspaper again.
“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,” she said of the first issue.
After three months (not years as reported last week), when the financial backers of the paper pulled out, Mardie gathered support through shareholders to refinance the paper and, for a while at least, it went from strength to strength.
It was almost a year after the first issue that Mountain Views was asked to extend its coverage to Upper Yarra.
Mardie’s husband, Harrie, joined the company around that time too and the paper provided a valuable voice to the community until its demise in 1996.
The Mail management and staff offer condolences to Mardie’s family, friends and the many readers who, as the tributes reprinted here attest, remember her contribution to the Yarra Valley community as a talented, passionate and committed newspaper woman.
A service celebrating Mardie’s life – before, during and after Mountain Views, will be held at Heritage Funeral Home in Woori Yallock at 1pm on Wednesday, 28 July.
Vale Mardie
Sally Brennan: Great community leader.
Ellena Biggs: She was a wonderful woman.
Norm Orr: Well remember the Mountain Views on moving to the valley – Mardie a trailblazer and visionary.
Pam Krstic: A very sad loss for the community. A celebration of her life and all she meant to the community is very much in order.
Veronica Groat: A wonderful editor who taught me so much about newspapers and life!
Robyn Johnston: Always in a rush to get a story or photo for her precious paper – without her we would never have the MV Mail that we have today.
Kellie Ward: Certainly a colourful part of the Healesville tapestry.
Michelle Answorth: A unique woman.
Paula Barrie: Vale Mardie! You were a wordsmith.
Rachel Barry: RIP Mardi; the town has lost a true legend.
Colleen Miller: Dear Mardi, you made a difference.
Jacinta Birchall: I worked at the paper when Mardi was editor. Great mentor.
Julie Blonik: Such a beautiful, intelligent, strong and lovely lady.
Rod Rodway: A lovely woman who no-one pushed around.
Gabrielle Plunkett: Sad news, she was an icon of our town.
