Harold sports impressive record

HAROLD Gibbin’s love affair with golf began 85 years ago when he was a teenager in Brisbane and continues today as a centenarian in Cairns.

He was 14 when he first picked up a club – the same age he left school and started working as a retail salesman.

“I started when Dr Buchanan came out from Scotland and joined the Oxley Golf Club in Brisbane,” says Mr Gibbins, who turned 100 last month.

“He wanted to get junior golf going and I was friendly with his son, so Dr Buchanan got his two sons and two other young fellows and started me off in golf at Oxley about 1934.

“He used to pay my fees. My mother and father were both invalid pensioners, so I couldn’t pay, and I used to use Mrs Buchanan’s golf clubs.”

The golf clubs took a rest when Harold started playing lacrosse and was selected to represent Queensland.

“In 1938 I played for the Queensland Colts against New South Wales in Sydney. Then the war came and all the lacrosse players in Queensland joined the services.”

A talented sportsman, Harold was also determined.

Keen to join the Postmaster-General’s Department (PMG), he didn’t have the academic qualifications needed, so bought books on science, mathematics and physics.

He sat the entrance exams, passed and was recruited as a trainee technician. He spent the war years in Mackay, operating from a sandbagged telephone exchange.

There were no vehicles available and, as a technician, he responded to communication breakdowns by catching trains to the nearest station and riding his bike to wherever his services were needed.

It was in Mackay that he took up golf again.

“I was on the committee of Mackay Golf Club when they changed from nine holes to 18 holes in 1948,” Harold says.

Posted to Cairns, and later Mareeba as supervising technician, he was responsible for a wide area of the Tableland before retiring from work in 1980.

“I liked golf because of the company, the atmosphere and the exercise I got,” he said.

“I was a member of the FNQ Veteran Golfers. We used to play at different courses from Tully to Mossman and out to Ravenshoe.

“I gave the game up in 2016 because I gave my driver’s licence away. I didn’t mind. I wasn’t playing well.”

This week, Mr Gibbins joined the FNQ Veteran Golfers final lunch of the year, spending the afternoon with former secretary Shirley Fieldhouse and patron Claud Clarke. “What a fantastic day. I could not have imagined a better day,” he said.