Obituary: Robin Strathdee

As an Australian Associated Press reporter in Sydney in the late 1960s he was one of the few Australian journalists to be sent on full time assignment to Vietnam in 1969 to cover the role of Australian troops in the war.

Strathdee’s work impressed Reuters and in 1970 he was recruited to join head office at 85 Fleet Street, London. His first posting was to Singapore, then the agency’s Asian headquarters, and from there he became resident correspondent in Jakarta in 1973. Two years later he decided it was time to return to Australia where he joined the Sunday Mail in Brisbane as chief of staff in 1975.

Five years later, he rejoined AAP, where he remained for the next 27 years as a bureau chief and manager. In 1999 he joined AAP Telecommunications, eventually retiring in 2007.

Former Reuters correspondent Les Murphy, who preceded Strathdee in Jakarta and knew him as a friend and colleague at Reuters and AAP for 40 years, said he would be well and widely remembered as a true gentleman, and the very best company a friend could have. “He had a wonderful sense of fun and mischief, great good humour, was occasionally boastful but mostly self-deprecating, fiercely determined and wonderfully loyal. He achieved much and did it with style.”

The funeral is in Melbourne on Tuesday.

PHOTO: Robin Strathdee, right with camera, reporting on Australian troops in Vietnam. ■