My cousin Donald Munro, who has died aged 89, was half French, spent his teenage years in Vichy France and later retired to that country. In the interim period he worked as a lawyer in Liverpool with a huge practice in civil and commercial litigation.
Donald was born at Toynbee Hall, the London University settlement, where his father, Hector Munro, was an idealistic young leftwing lawyer. Hector’s French wife, Antoinette Grenat, was a teacher, who after Donald’s birth had severe postnatal depression. The marriage failed and Donald was placed in the care of his aunt (my mother) in Liverpool, with whom he remained until, aged five, he rejoined his mother.
They were in Paris when war was declared, days after Donald’s 13th birthday. A family holiday turned into a dramatic escape south to Cahors. Donald joined the Lycée Gambetta in the town, where he learned to value the ideals of republican France. His formal education was sketchy, partly because Jews were sheltered at the school and many teachers had been arrested. Highly placed Nazis now dominated the city – and food shortages were such that a bag of dog biscuits was consumed with relish by the family.
Shortly before taking the baccalaureate, Donald, as a British citizen, was arrested. A terrifying train journey north ended with his internment in a prison camp at St Denis in 1944. It was established that he was “Nicht Juif”, and he was photographed with his assigned number, 9220-ZI-2400, a process that affected him deeply.
Liberation came later that year and, after the Nazis had fled, he left the camp. He crossed the Channel to his father, who headed the Liverpool law firm HJ Davis, Berthen & Munro, and had found fame in connection with the murder trial of the insurance agent William Wallace in 1931. A gauche teenager with faltering English, Donald nevertheless overcame these obstacles to qualify as a lawyer in 1952.
He wrote the International Law Association’s Report of the Committee on Collisions at Sea, adopted at Montreal in 1982. Even among a generation of decorous, careful lawyers, he stood out: he encouraged young lawyers, was universally trusted and respected, and never took advantage of an opponent. I have received many glowing tributes to Donald that would have amazed him.
He was happily married to Vera (nee Mitchell), whom he married in 1955, until her death in 2000. After they went to live in France, Donald enjoyed rigorous historical research and wrote various privately circulated items, including a graphic memoir of the war years. Their son, Nicholas, survives him.
