Margaret Pomeranz remembers David Stratton: ‘I feel as though one half of me has gone'

The Guardian

17 hours ago

I know I have been reticent about commenting on David Stratton's death (he didn't want to 'pass', he wanted to die – no euphemisms for him!). But apart from wanting to hug my grief to myself, I felt that it was his family who should be considered, not me. And if anyone should have a tribute it is Strats' wife, Susie, who was the most wonderful support to him over these difficult years. I told him he was lucky to have married a younger woman!
David was a stoic, he never wallowed in his deteriorating health. He continued to watch a new movie every day and revisit old favourites. He would enthuse about a new Australian film he'd just seen – he never lost that absolute passion for cinema.
So much has been written about David's and my partnership over the years that there's not much more to be said, but I have a few recollections that aren't so well known.
When we met I was a cinema enthusiast, not a walking encyclopedia of film like David. When he first came into SBS and I tried to talk to him, he brushed me off unceremoniously. I imagine a few people have had that experience with him but over the years he became much more welcoming of people approaching him – especially young film enthusiasts, many of whom he mentored and promoted. He was unstintingly generous in that way.
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When Peter Barrett, the head of programming at SBS, told me I was to become David's producer, I said I didn't think it was a good idea; he didn't think that much of me. But David seemed to welcome someone, anyone, helping him.
So I became the producer of his movie introductions, to Movie of the Week and his beloved Cinema Classics. I had to create new lead-ins to these, and David and I decided to use Nino Rota's music. I had such fun with the introduction to the Classics, with images of Polanski's Knife in the Water, Bergman's The Seventh Seal and from Eisenstein's Battleship Potemkin. Of course David had to approve everything, and we formed a good working relationship.
Our first film discussion, or vague disagreement, was about the Australian film The Empty Beach, directed by Chris Thomson, based on a novel by Peter Corris. I was dismissive but, as I listened to David's support for the film, I realised that my reaction had been too facile. It was the beginning of Strats' education of my film appreciation.
David was renowned for giving people nicknames. He got the order of my maiden name, Jones-Owen, deliberately wrong and I became Moj to him and everyone who worked on the shows from then on. And I remained Moj to the end. I'm glad I'm still Moj to his family – and all our film show family.
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I think it's extraordinary that, over all the time that David and I worked together, we never had a falling out. Minor disagreements maybe, and maybe more spirited ones on air, but it was a relationship of deep respect – certainly of me for him, maybe a little bit less of him for me – and of deep friendship.
Once David took you into the fold you had someone whose loyalty was unquestioned. And it was reciprocal. During all those years we've had family traumas and setbacks, and we always had each other's backs. I knew that if I was in trouble David would be one of the first people I'd turn to.
We went to the ABC because I had his back. And when my husband was in hospital with a life-threatening illness he had mine.
So maybe you can understand the loss I feel, of this man with whom I had a conversation at least once every week, whom I loved, who was so fine, such a gentle man, who decided to give me credibility in insisting that I sit beside him in those chairs, week after week, discussing films.
I woke up in the middle of the night in the immediate aftermath of his death and, in trying to work out how I felt, I decided that I felt amputated – as though one half of me has gone. There's no more Margaret and David. Just as there is no more David and Susie.