A CHARTERED accountant who played a major role in the survival of Malvern Hills College – now South Worcestershire College – in the 1990s has died.

John Tuck, who was aged 88, lived in Zetland Road, Malvern and spent his latter years in the town’s Cleeve House care home.

In the late 1980s, Mr Tuck enrolled on courses at Malvern Hills College, but was made aware of the parlous state of its finances when a Worcestershire County Council Grant was suddenly withdrawn.

Once a fund-raising effort had been successful in staving off financial ruin, he volunteered to bring his chartered accountancy skills to bear and for the next eight years worked unpaid to help the Board of the Wyvern Trust keep the college afloat.

Former chairman of the trust, Chris Green, said: “John Tuck made a crucial contribution having come forward to act as honorary treasurer in a wholly unpaid capacity.

“He was a skilled accountant and gave many hours a week working in the college to improve financial practices and establish management accountancy systems.

“The college’s survival was on a knife edge and I am sure the hundreds of hours of devoted work put in by John Tuck were vital – maybe the vital – part of the reason we could survive and ensure that Malvern still has a college to be proud of.

“The town and the county, together with all students and tutors at the college, owe John a great debt of gratitude.

“Very few people would have had the ability to do what he did.

Fewer still would have been prepared to do it all without any payment.”

There will be a humanist celebration of Mr Tuck’s life at the Mount Pleasant Hotel, Belle Vue Terrace, in Malvern on Monday at 2pm.