A tribute to Tim Acton (WG 1950)

By Paul Ackerman (NG 1975)
OC Co-ordinator for Victoria, Australia

Tim Acton, former OC co-ordinator for Victoria, Australia, passed away on 20 August 2021 aged 83.

Tim attended the Junior and Senior schools from the mid 1940s and was a keen sportsman. He was captain of the school’s tennis team in 1955 and was a formidable fullback in a successful football first XI in 1954 and 1955.

On leaving school, Tim completed his National Service in the Royal Marines and then at the age of twenty-one made the life changing decision to migrate to Australia as a “ten pound Pom.”

Joining Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) in 1960, he commenced a successful career in the airline industry where he spent the next forty-one years in marketing and management positions first with TAA and then in 1976 joining Cathay Pacific as their Manager for Victoria and Tasmania. During his career Tim had postings in Papua New Guinea, Hong Kong and Singapore before making Melbourne his long-term home.

 Tim retired in 2000 but remained very active both as a regular public speaker and as a presenter of a travel show on local community radio in Melbourne. Tim was also a keen Rotarian.

Throughout his life Tim maintained a strong affection for Highgate school and in 2006 became OC co-ordinator for Victoria, a role which he carried out with great enthusiasm, organising regular gatherings of the local OCs until ill health forced him to step down at the beginning of 2021.

Football 1st XI 1954 (Tim rear row, far right).

Tim at his OC handover lunch in February 2021.

 Above all, Tim was a great raconteur with a lively sense of humour and a worldwide set of friends. These attributes came together in the final years of his life in the form of “Tim’s Daily Ticklers”. At the start of the COVID pandemic and with Melbourne in lockdown Tim decided to email a small group of friends a joke of the day. He proceeded to send an email for around 550 consecutive days to what grew to be a distribution of over 350 people. Many of us became accustomed to starting our day with Tim’s Ticklers and they are sorely missed.

Tim battled with poor health over the last year of his life although you would never know it in speaking to him. He died peacefully in palliative care close to his beloved Mornington Peninsula, which had been home for the last decade of his life. Following COVID related delays a celebration of his life was held in Melbourne on 16 February 2022 where a large gathering farewelled a true gentleman and greatly loved friend.