Decades in harness for ‘Mountie’

From the miners’ strike to the Hillsborough disaster, to the Bradford riots to watching some of the Team GB’s finest securing gold in the London Olympics, PC Paul Brown has seen it all.

But despite being in the saddle since joining the South Yorkshire Police Mounted Section in 1981, which this year has led to him becoming the longest serving specialist officer in the force, PC Brown says there is no chance of hanging up his spurs just yet.

The 57-year-old grandfather-of-two has just returned to the police stables at Cudworth, near Barnsley, after a spell in the capital helping police the equestrian event where Zara Phillips and her team mates rode to Olympic glory.

He also regularly travels around the country attending competitions with the British National Tentpegging Team – where riders wield guns, swords and lances on horseback – for which he is currently the highest points holder for 2012.

But as he trots through an adjoining field to the stables in his South Yorkshire Police uniform astride his nine-year-old light bay Whirlow, it is here where he seems truly at home.

“I joined the force in August ’73 and started as a cadet with Sheffield and Rotherham Police,” PC Brown said.

“Then in 1981 I was having a pint with a colleague who was in mounted, and he said they are recruiting so I should come to the stables and have a look around.

“They invited me in for a cup of tea and that was it.

“I had never even sat on a horse until I came here.

“When I joined the branch I didn’t intend to stay anywhere for life. My plan was do five years and move on.

“The miners’ strike in 1984 was my first big job.

“I had an emotional tie with my family as well. One brother was a miner at Kiveton Park and my youngest brother worked at Orgreave coking plant.

“They were both involved in the strikes and I was on the police lines.

“Initially, it was very intimidating.

“The media portrayed it horrifically, but one week we were doing running lines then a week later we were playing football together.

“As a family it brought us closer together.”

PC Brown has ridden five horses in total throughout his career, named Silverwood, Trouper, Norton, Anston and his current charge Whirlow.

Despite being assaulted on a number of occasions, including a strangulation bid by a mental patient who grabbed his tie, he counts himself lucky that the worst injury he has suffered is two broken fingers playing musical chairs on horseback at a county show.

“The Bradford riots were scary,” he said.

“We were there the day after the riots and they were clearing all the mess and carnage but you could feel the anger and bitterness that was there.

“How nobody got killed that evening I don’t know.”

With police forces across the country battling a 20 per cent reduction in their budgets following Home Office cuts, many mounted sections have now been disbanded.

But PC Brown is hopeful that his unit – one of just two in Yorkshire – will survive the axe.

“We did an experiment last year where if you put two officers on horseback on a street corner, within a couple of minutes a crowd of 10 to 20 people have gathered to talk to you and pet the horses and pass the time,” he said.

“If you put two officers on foot in the same place, then people just walk past.

“When you are out on patrol you are constantly talking to the horse and reassuring it.

“The horse is your best friend out there.

“I take a lot of pride in my 
role as a mounted officers and in being a police officer itself.

“Mounted officers still have a role to play in public order and certainly a role to play in public relations for the police.”

PC Brown’s competition history for the mounted section has given him the opportunity to develop a hobby of collecting police helmets and he now has almost 200 different examples, from countries as far afield as Russia, New Guinea, Kenya and South Africa.

“The bobby’s helmets is always their proudest possession,” he said.