Tommy Mayne — teacher, volunteer, philanthropist and the inspiration for the statue of the town crier at Ogden Point — has died at age 99.
The Victoria-born Mayne was a 1935 graduate of Victoria High School, where he became a much-loved teacher from 1945 to 1978. He was known especially for teaching drama and also taught social studies.
His affection for the stage led to the honour of being made a life member of the Victoria Theatre Guild in 1978. He was a life member of the Arts Council of Greater Victoria, as well, an organization he led as president from 1978 to 1987.
Sylvia Hosie, an actor and entertainer who was a student of Mayne’s, said he was an incredible teacher who also ran a drama club called the Calamity Players. She graduated in 1961.
“He called me his favourite student because I used to laugh at all his jokes.”
Hosie said he was “very entertaining” during social studies classes. “He used to act out all the wars and everything,” she said. “He was just a wonderful, energized gentleman. He made our time at Vic High so much fun.”
The Vic High community kept in touch with him after he retired.
“He was so popular that all through his retirement he was invited to reunion after reunion after reunion, and if he could get there he would get there. He very seldom missed a reunion.”
Mayne was deeply involved in the community, and for 20 years was the crowd-pleasing town crier for the Victoria A.M. Association — his connection to the Ogden Point statue. Like others in Victoria A.M., a tourism-focused group, he dressed in costume to greet cruise-ship passengers disembarking at Ogden Point and experiencing Victoria for the first time.
Victoria A.M. president Anne Cree said Mayne was an important member of the group. She praised his crier’s voice and described him as “a very, very, very pleasant man.”
“He really was in for promoting the tourism industry in this city.”
Mayne made a number of donations in his later years, including one that caught Blue Bridge Theatre artistic director Brian Richmond off guard in 2011.
“It was all filled with drama and surprise,” Richmond said. “He invited us out to the dining room at Berwick House, where he spent the last years of his life. We had this wonderful dinner that he had prepared for us and he presented me with a $25,000 cheque, right at the time that we absolutely needed it.
“He was so amazing.”
Richmond said he enjoyed getting to know Mayne better in the ensuing years.
“As I said to him every time I saw him, I just was filled with admiration at not only at his generosity but his mental acuity and the way that he just kept going,” he said. “I think the city has lost a wonderful man and the arts community has lost a wonderful man.”
Another significant act of generosity was the gift in 2010 of $25,000 for the establishment of the Thomas and Elizabeth Mayne Bursary in Theatre at the University of Victoria. His wife, Elizabeth, known as Betty, was also involved in Victoria’s theatre scene.
She died in 2004. The couple had no children.
Mayne explained the donations he was making in a 2011 Times Colonist article: “I read about a lady in James Bay who was very generous, who said she wanted to see her money working while she was still alive. That really struck me and that’s the philosophy behind all this.
“I can tell you from personal experience, we truly are more blessed to give than to receive.”
