Charles 'Bud' Tingwell, 3 January 1923–15 May 2009
I only met Bud Tingwell once. Like so many others, I went away the better for the brief encounter. But the meeting also led me to ask questions about what matters, and how we should nurture it in Australian society.
I had not planned to see him. I was cycling through rural Victoria enjoying myself and also learning a lot about life in the country as I went. One Sunday I arrived at Yarram, a Gippsland town. I discovered that I had arrived in time for the Yarram Film Festival. So I decided to go along.
The whole town was involved in staging and attending the Festival. For a hungry cyclist the afternoon tea alone justified the modest price of admission. The film was a retrospective — the 1957 British film, The Shiralee, in which Tingwell had a minor role.
The film wore its age surprisingly well. But the highlight came at the end of the film, when Tingwell himself came on to the stage, talked about the movie and reminisced about his life as an actor.
I was struck particularly by the generous way in which he spoke of other actors. He mentioned their foibles but always in the context of their professional skills and personal qualities. To him they were part of a guild who practised their skills as a gift for their audiences.
In particular I remember his stories about Margaret Rutherford whose films with Alastair Sim had given me great delight as a child. Tingwell spoke of her as a genial and hard-working actor whose passion was a project to turn around the lives of troubled young people by involving them in theatre.
When I met him I mentioned how much I had enjoyed his acting in Tulip, a short film based on a story much told in our family. His immediate response was to talk generously of the people with whom he had been involved in the film. He spoke of them as actors, but first as persons.
As I reflected on the event afterwards, I was struck by the fact that Tingwell, by then an elderly man, should give so fully of his time and energy to contribute to a country festival. He instinctively saw the importance of community events, and had put himself out to encourage people to make connections.
For him acting was about making connections: