Today, netball and hockey are popular recreations for young women of the Macleay but before that there was another very popular movement - marching.
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The Macleay Marching Girls Association was one of the first formed on the North Coast and its members enjoyed a great deal of success in state and interstate competitions.
Marching for girls and boys as well developed from the military traditions of World War II.
Kempsey first saw marching girls when the Marching Girls' Association arranged for 180 marching girls to participate in the Hospital Carnival, in what was described as the most spectacular and delightful procession ever seen in Kempsey.
The eighteen teams of marching girls, from Grafton and Coffs Harbour, combined with the Silver Band and the Macleay Caledonian Pipe Band in a procession through Kempsey to the Showground.
Here, around 3,000 people watched demonstrations and listened to band music.
In a few weeks, the Macleay Marching Girls' Association was formed with just one instructor, Mrs Reg Henshaw. Two years later there were eight teams in the Association including the Macleay Musketeers, the Ramblers and the Kilties.
In 1958 the Waratahs and the Sunbeams from Burnt Bridge, the first two Aboriginal teams of marching girls to be formed in Australia, had their first public appearance at Coffs Harbour in the North Coast Championships where they won two third placings.
The Macleay Regals team from the Macleay won two State Championships in January 1961. In April the same year, the Macleay Regent Tars junior team gained second place in the fall-in section at the Carnival of the Pines in Port Macquarie while the Macleay Regals gained second place in display and won the march past.
Within a few years however, the Macleay Marching Girls Association went into a long recess.
There was a revival in October 1985 when the Kempsey-Macleay Marching Association was resurrected by former marching girls, Mrs Cheryl Hillman and Ms Kay Black.
The marching girls took part in the annual truck show in Kempsey and an Australian-rated competition in Kempsey attracted over 200 marchers from other Associations around New South Wales.
New teams were named the Gazelles, Regals and Mariners in homage to their predecessors and Kempsey became the largest Association in New South Wales and the only one on the North Coast.
Other teams were the Rozellas, Ramblers, Mariners, Emeralds and Macleay Black Spades.
Business houses made generous donations and numerous raffles raised funds towards travel costs.
A 49-seater bus was now used to transport the girls to the various championships instead of the converted animal transport semi-trailer that had been used in the 1950s.
The Macleay Marching Girls Association finally disbanded in 1992.
