Virtual
War Memorial
Australia

THOMAS GRATTON (‘TIM’) YOUNG

12 September 1926 – 20 February 2015

Tim Young, who has died aged 88, saw World War 2 service in the RAN, pioneered computerised systems in his business ventures, held office in the RSL, and was a Justice of the Peace for 41 years.

At the Sturt Bowling Club, where he had achieved life membership through serving as both president and as treasurer, a green is named after him; he recorded more than 50 years’ duty with the SA Sea Rescue Squadron, becoming its commodore; and somehow he found time to be a volunteer bus driver for the Unley City Council. This remarkable history of community service was recognised with the award of the OAM in 2007.

Educated at Swinburne Technical College, Melbourne, Thomas Gratton (always known as ‘Tim’) Young enlisted in the Royal Australian Navy in 1944, joining the complement of HMAS Westralia – an infantry landing ship with a colourful past. Four years earlier, its crew had mutinied in northern Queensland over a prolonged period on short rations and without shore leave. As a member of a new (and non-mutinous) ship’s company, Able Seaman Tim Young served in the Pacific theatre of conflict.

After the war, Tim went to Britain on a working holiday, where he met up with another travelling Australian, Margaret Dooley, the sister of an RAN shipmate. Her mother was Olive Haynes, a World War 1 nursing sister whose memoirs subsequently inspired the television drama Anzac Girls. Margaret and Tim were married on their return to Australia in 1951, a union that would produce two daughters and a son.

Tim Young’s professional interests flourished. On moving to Adelaide in the early 1960s, he founded a business management company specialising in consultancy for service stations, displaying a flair for the introduction of computers in the workplace. An intensely practical man, he also made a number of labour-saving devices for his home and restored classic motor cars.

For the RSL, he served as Unley sub-branch treasurer (2002 – 2013) and vice-president (2013 – 2015). In the spare hours that remained, he enjoyed Gilbert & Sullivan operetta recordings and performances. On Friday nights, with Margaret, he would dine at La Trattoria on King William Street – where, prompted perhaps by an enduring love of the sea, Tim Young always recommended the spaghetti marinara.