Profile- Paul Horton - Councillor

Paul Horton was born in Wollongong and the family moved to Tarana in the late 40's where his parents owned and operated the general store and butcher shop, directly opposite the Tarana Hotel. At the age of 4 he took over the controls of an unattended motor car, and later the Co-op bread lorry from Bathurst, driving them both into the fence on the opposite side of the roadway (young car thief). It does become relevant later on.

Moving to Lithgow in 1956 Paul grew up surrounded by sport and subsequently played Cricket, Squash, Hockey and Rugby League. He was publicity officer for Hockey and Rugby League, he wrote copy under the pen name 'Buzz'. He was forbidden from writing about cricket to give him time to concentrate on his game, unfortunately he couldn't bat or bowl, but he was an excellent fieldsman, and sneaked into 1st grade on the odd occasion.

Paul 'joined the NSW Police Force' under the guiding hands of the majority of the local constabulary who apparently thought it was 'better to have him with us, than against us'. He was transferred to Goulburn in 1967 where he started playing golf at Tully Park, where once again he became publicity officer and got involved in all types of indoor sports, Darts, Snooker with just a dash of committee working experience. He got his handicap down to 12, won the monthly medal and gold medal playoff for 1969 and played pennants for Tully Park on a number of occasions. In 1969 Paul, playing B grade hockey with Goulburn Workmens Club, won the premiership and represented several times in 1st grade. It had been a fabulous year and there was much celebrating of his success, and, golf took second place while he concetrated on hockey, unfortunately a broken ankle fixed that and success was short lived. A transfer to Broken Hill ensured golf would get back on the agenda.
The Indian Tully Park Golf Club 1974

Broken Hill was a great experience for Paul as his patrol covered almost one sixth of NSW, including the Victorian, South Australian and Queensland borders, all fell within his boundaries. Working for the coppers taught him to be a bit of a 'loner' because he was the only 'crime scene' detective in the region. On the occasions when he was home he found time to play 2nd grade Rugby League for Geebungs, A grade Snooker and Billiards for The Musicians Club. Fishing at Lake Menindee, Darling and Murray River's was an occasional pastime with the usual partaking of local and South Australian ales. The golf was all sand greens (black's at Broken Hill) and the very hot weather conditions had Paul playing the majority of his golf with Alma Sporting Club Social Golfers, 9 holes 6am on Sunday mornings, where he played off a handicap of 4. Unbelieveable, it sure was, I remember at one of his many send-offs before he left 'the hill', his mates from Alma gave him a cricket umpires counter, because they didn't always believe his scores. He always put other people first when he was here at 'the hill', he fancied himself a bit at snooker, so I took him under my wing to teach him how to really play the game. We got into billiards and he didn't want to even try. I taught him the fundamentals of the game play and convinced him to try, before he left us about four years later he had made three 100 breaks at billiards, but couldn't crack one at snooker. He was involved in a considerable amount of charity work for several organisations, especially the North Broken Hill miners 'widow's support group'.
Reg Atkinson Musicians Club 1976

Paul moved to Newcastle in 1976 and although he joined Morisset Country Club he rarely played golf, concentrating on hockey with South Newcastle (occasionally) and on his work. In 1980 he transferred back to Sydney where he worked General Dutie's at Balmain before returning to Forensic Administration work in the mid 80's when the computer revolution was starting to happen and his interests quickly spread to technical areas. In 1990 he moved to the Blue Mountains, travelling 5 hours each day to and from work. As the year 2000 rolled on, politics and the lack of direction in computer technologies led to frustration, poor health and early retirement. Luckily he got into golf again around 1998 with the Blue Mountains Veteran Golfers, and the rest is history. My wife is a very good Blue Mountains artist, Paul is a photographer and when he comes to our place we don't talk golf, I drink and listen to my wife Marlene & Paul talk art and photography.

Paul's better half is Fiona, a highly qualified potter, porclain dollmaker and she turns her hand at any type of arts & crafts, including paper tole, because Paul is a photographer. Between them they have eight children, four girls and four boys at the last count, I don't know how she puts up with him.
Peter Jones BMVGA 2006

Numerous contributors