Colin Munro (1940-2010)

My father’s best friend died on Monday.  Colin ‘Slim’ Munro was the doyen of the ABC’s Rural Department for over 25 years.  He died of a stroke but had already succumbed to a vicious dementia whose timely diagnosis had been stymied by deafness suffered since childhood.

For many years Slim was the voice of Australia All Over, a Sunday morning call-in radio programme that celebrated the spirit of a rural Australia where isolation and hardship was met with laconic humour and reflexive kindness.  The premise was that ordinary people living in often extreme circumstances had wonderful stories to tell if properly encouraged.  On air and in person Slim was a genius of teasing out a tale that seemed commonplace to the teller but was extraordinary to the rest of us.

He was an indefatigable supporter of latterly unfashionable rural charities like the Country Women’s Association and the Stockman’s Hall of Fame.  He was a wonderful after-dinner speaker who was in continual demand throughout the Australian bush.

In Slim’s time the ABC really did see itself as being owned by all Australians.  He certainly felt that way and he affected an amazing ability to remember the name of everyone he’d ever met.  He’d met so many thousands of lovely yet thoroughly ordinary people that his recall wasn’t always immediate.  Watching him ask a procession of perfectly disguised triangulating questions until his memory jogged was to witness a peculiar sort of genius.  Dementia was an especially cruel fate.

Slim and Dad met on their first day at Wagga Agricultural College in 1958.  Their friendship was both immediate and unwavering.  Slim had known five generations of my family.  He’d taken champagne and chicken sandwiches at my great grandmother’s bedside on the day of my parent’s wedding and he’d spoken at the lunch to celebrate my first niece’s baptism.  To be loved by someone loved by so many others is a blessing that my family will always cherish.

I grieve for Slim but my heart breaks for my father.  Never again will he cause his best friend’s face to light up merely by walking into the room.  Our ability to affect another in such a way dies with that person.