Mungo Ballardie MacCallum

Mungo Ballardie MacCallum
Born	John Mungo Ballardie MacCallum (1913-12-11)11 December 1913 Point Piper, Sydney, Australia
Died	12 July 1999(1999-07-12) (aged 85) Sydney, Australia
Spouse(s)	Diana Wentworth (m. 1939) Polly MacCallum (m. 1972)
Children	Mungo Wentworth MacCallum
Parent	Mungo Lorenz MacCallum (father)
Relatives	Mungo William MacCallum (grandfather)

John Mungo Ballardie MacCallum (commonly known as Mungo Ballardie MacCallum, 11 December 1913 – 12 July 1999) was an Australian journalist, broadcaster and poet.

Early life

MacCallum was born in Point Piper, Sydney on 11 December 1913. His father was Mungo Lorenz MacCallum, a Rhodes Scholar, barrister and journalist, and son of Dorette and Mungo William MacCallum, Chancellor of the University of Sydney. He attended Sydney Grammar School and studied arts at the University of Sydney.

Career

MacCallum began as a cadet journalist with the Sydney Morning Herald during his second year at Sydney University, shortly before his father's death in 1934. In 1941 he joined the Army Education Service as the editor of SALT, a journal written by and by Australian troops, with contributions from several well-known Australian writers and from MacCallum himself. SALT was popular throughout the armed forces and was valued also by many Australian officials and war correspondents.

After the end of the War and the closure of SALT (1946), MacCallum worked for several years as a columnist with the Sun, a Sydney tabloid newspaper, before joining the ABC in 1952. After a stint at the BBC, he helped produce the first night of television in Australia in 1956. His books included two novels, Voyage of Love, and Son of Mars, and a memoir, Plankton's Luck. Later, in the 1960s, he wrote for a journal named Nation. He had a son, Mungo Wentworth MacCallum, with his first wife, Diana Wentworth.

Death

MacCallum died in Sydney on 12 July 1999.