Hugh Acworth joined the 8th King’s Royal Irish Hussars in Lüneburg shortly after the regiment’s return from Korea. He had been born in India but the family came from Newcastle, Co. Down and he was imbued with a love of country sports, competing enthusiastically in Hunter Trials in Germany.
After the usual apprenticeship as a troop leader in ‘C’ Squadron (where two of the troop leaders came from the north of Ireland and two from the south, giving rise to much good-natured rivalry) he spent some time as a young captain on the staff of 7th Armoured Brigade (The Desert Rats) and then returned to regimental duty as HQ Squadron leader in the Queen’s Royal Irish Hussars with whom he travelled to Aden and Sharjah as second-in-command of ‘A’ Squadron.
This turned out to be his last tour with the regiment as his talents and inclinations forged him a career spent mainly on the technical staff, although he followed the regiment to the Far East when, in 1964, he was posted to the Labuan office of the Director of Operations of the Borneo campaign.
Attendance at the Tank Technology course at the Armour School in Bovington led to a posting at Kirkcudbright and then a tour as squadron leader at the Junior Leaders Regiment, also in Bovington. Technical staff appointments at the MOD and elsewhere followed until in the late 1980s he was at Headquarters Northern Ireland and finally at the RAC Records Office in Chester from which in 1988 he retired with his wife Joan to Cheshire. She sadly pre-deceased him and for the last two years of his life, he lived with one of his daughters and her husband in Poundbury, Dorset, where he died in 2023, aged ninety.
Hugh always kept in close touch with friends and colleagues in both the regiments in which he served and was a frequent attendee at Regimental Association events during his retirement. To his four children and his grandchildren, we have our deepest sympathy for their loss.
