By Glen Williams
After two decades together, Home And Away originals Kate Ritchie and Ray “Alf” Meagher say goodbye to Summer Bay.
On the eve of Kate Ritchie’s final Home And Away episode airing on April 3, Woman’s Day is invited to sit down with the Summer Bay legend and her equally celebrated co-star Ray Meagher. Both have been with the show since it began in 1988, and emotions are raw. Not long into our interview, Kate and Ray burst into tears and find it hard to stop. Clearly, saying goodbye to Sally Fletcher, a girl they’ve known for 20 years, is harder than either ever anticipated.
How do you describe your relationship? I gather it’s changed through the years?
Kate: Yes, but there are no sordid secrets [laughs]! It’s completely different today to what it was 20 years ago. I was a little girl then, but Ray looks as good as he did 20 years ago!
I have always felt that Ray was a father figure. As long as Ray was there, everything would be all right. When he wasn’t there, I’d notice it. I mean this in a very nice way — he’s like my favourite pair of shoes. You know what you’re going to get and it’s comfortable. We’ve become friends. It’s hard to explain [tears again]. You know, when you just know that someone’s there. I could be in my dressing room and just knowing Ray was next door, I felt everything was fine. At the end, it was kind of just Ray and me.
Ray: Right from the start it was obvious she was a natural. She just came in and took over and had everyone eating out of her hand without trying. And things have grown and changed over 20 years. Kate looks a bit different these days, for a start. Having Kate around — when she became more my friend than just a kid on the show — was great. Our dressing rooms were alongside each other. I walk past the door now and it’s [tears up] empty.
How does it feel for you both to make the Guinness World Records for your amazing run in Home And Away [longest continual role in an Australian drama]?
Kate: Well I’m not in it any more. Ray has surpassed me now.
Ray: Norman Coburn [who played principal Donald Fisher until 2003] was in it too at one stage.
Ray, are you predicting big things for Kate?
Ray: The character Sally will never be forgotten. However, the association with Kate and the Sally character will gradually dissipate while she spends a bit of time in radio. If any TV executive has half a brain they will be knocking on her door in no time flat saying we’ve got this great new series we want you to front up. She could do that on her ear.
The character of Alf will always be remembered, too. He’s certainly kept the good Aussie slang and language of the bush alive. What are some of your favourite Alf sayings?
Ray: The vast majority of those are stolen or derivations of what I’ve heard elsewhere. I first picked them up in the Queensland bush — things like, “stone the flamin’ crows”, “Strike me pink” and “a man is not a flamin’ doormat”.
Kate: I liked any of his “flamin'” phrases. It’s nice to turn on the TV and see the true Australian language represented because we’re losing that.
Through the years you also got to work with some amazing talent.
Kate: I certainly did — Bud Tingwell, Guy Pearce, Naomi Watts and Heath Ledger.
Ray: And Craig McLachlan. He was a total fruit cake.
Home And Away screens weeknights at 7pm on the Seven Network. Kate Ritchie’s final episode playing Sally Fletcher airs on April 3.
For more of this interview, see this week’s Woman’s Day (on sale March 31).
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