Well, our guest speaker for October – Mike Munro (or should I say Mike Kenniff !!) certainly entertained us with his most interesting presentation of his life story. His early infant life was sad with his mother having to leave his father due to drunken and abusive behaviour. Mike was only four years old ! His mother had very limited funds so they lived from hand to mouth. Their accomodation was sparse and they were constantly on the move. They were forced to live above shops, behind shops, in one-roomed units – in fact wherever they could find somewhere, anywhere. Their shortest sojourn was two weeks as they had not paid their rent and the landlord evicted them. Notwithstanding their constant moving, one thing his mother insisted on was living in the one neighbourhood of Mosman so that he could attend one school to ensure continuity with both his studies and school friends. This enabled Mike to at least develop and grow up with a degree of stability in his forced nomadic life-style.
His mother had left his father with no forwarding address and it was several years before his father managed to trace them. Mike’s relationship with his father was thus poor and they seldom saw one another. However in Mike’s late teens, his father gave him a tape recorder which was to shape his entire future life. He recorded anything he could – even creeping up behind his school teacher and secretly recording the conversation.
His career developed from radio and then moved into TV. He worked for Murdock, Packer and others. He related many interesting anecdotes which were most amusing.
It was in his later life, that Mike discovered that he was related to the last-remaining bush ranger family of brothers Patrick and James Kenniff. His correct name was therefore Mike Kenniff but for stage purposes, he retained his well-known name of Mike Munro as we all know him today.
Cliff Ventris.
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