By JOHN WOODS
My late dear colleague Marg Stork was the consummate journalist… tenacious, accurate, considerate, dedicated, determined and caring are just some of the words which immediately come to mind when recalling her lifetime’s work with, and for, the people of Dandenong and surrounds.
The Dandenong Journal was her life and in my 50-year association with the newspaper nobody involved in our profession came anywhere near close to challenging her vast knowledge of the city and its people, gleaned over many decades of service via the written word.
She began her journalistic life when a teenager, under the guidance of The Dandenong Journal’s highly-respected owner-editor Greg Dickson.
Greg was Dandenong through and through and his publication shone like a beacon in the Victorian newspaper publishing scene.
Greg’s devotion to the then shire and its residents, without doubt, had an influence on how Marg’s career and dedication to it would evolve.
A diminutive figure but with awesome tenacity, Marg provided her readers with a myriad of published memories of her work, ranging from wedding reports and social activities of the best-known and lesser-known members of ‘her’ community, to front-page stories that over the years would help her beloved Journal win many national and Victorian newspaper awards.
I first met Marg early in 1965 when the newspaper was published out of what by today’s workplace standards were pathetically decrepit premises in Scott Street, Dandenong.
Not that such a irritant bothered ‘our Marg’ – she never complained or uttered a bad word about anything or anyone.
In the newspaper profession, that is a rare occurrence.
When our journos in the late 1970s were trying to come to grips with what was then the very raw beginning of the computer age, Marg was obliged to ditch her typewriter and, along with her colleagues, had to give those new-fangled machines a try.
But, after suffering RSI (repetitive strain injury), Marg went back to belting out her stories on her Remi. The result? No more RSI!
Marg worked with that old, clunky typewriter in those earlier days and was still producing her stories that way until the end.
Marg was fiercely loyal to The Journal and would let nothing stand in the way of turning up to work every day, taking the train from Oakleigh and then walking to Scott Street from Dandenong railway station and in later years taking a cab after the office moved out to Dandenong-Frankston Road.
More often than not, she’d pick up a story along the way, many of them from the cabbies.
That loyalty knew no bounds and as her then boss I vividly remember receiving a call at home late one night from an understandably agitated and teary Marg, saying her marriage had come to an unexpected end.
Told that she should take as much time off as she wanted, Marg insisted on coming into work the next day. Only the most loyal and strong-willed person could have done that.
Marg’s journalistic efforts in the Dandenong community were recognised, and rightly so, when she was named one of the city’s Living Treasures, the highest award the council could bestow on any of its citizens.
The accolade was awarded to people who it was agreed encapsulated the true meaning of community service.
To Marg she was simply doing her job; to the council, she was indeed a ‘Treasure’.
In the mid-1980s, and unbeknown to Marg, I sought and willingly received written commendations from civic leaders, parliamentarians, community leaders, business people and others recommending Marg for an Australia Day national award.
Being advised that the nomination had not been successful was one of the saddest – and least understandable – occasions in my journalistic career.
Such an award would have been a most fitting reward for not only a journalist for whom we in the profession, and the local community in general, had the utmost respect, but also for a wonderful, wonderful person.
Dandenong and The Journal has lost its journalistic heart and soul.
RIP, Marg.
