Paul Treuthardt

A model aeroplane in a neighbour’s window started it all.

Replying to my knock the neighbor, after a few minutes, said:

“You should meet a young fellow named Paul. He could come over on his scooter.”

• He was soon teaching me chess and

• Helping fly my models

• We travelled many hundreds of miles – by train or in the back of a ute for flying events –

• We even took home a few trophies.

He was a favourite of my mother – he always had time to talk to her.

Soon

• My ancient Morris 8 gave us mobility for:

o countless parties around Sydney; and

o trips to the Mount Druit circuit to watch Jack Brabham in his Cooper Bristol.

One night in ’53 my journalist father was upset – a classmate of mine hadn’t turned up to start as a cadet.

• I said “Paul might be interested”. “Get him in my office in the morning” was the response.

• And so Paul became a journalist. The other fellow became a judge.

We were both cadets – engineering for me and Sydney’s Daily Mirror for Paul. Two years Later UPI, sparked his interest in international news.

We enjoyed the bohemian coffee shop atmosphere in Kings Cross

We were even “Stage Door Jonnies” together – Paint Your Wagon was playing at the Tivoli.

Paul’s first motor race coverage was the ’56 Australian GP – won by Stirling Moss. Somehow I was his “photographer” and we dodged a wheel flying towards us as one of the cars crashed.

In ’57, after the 21st birthday parties, he left from Sydney airport:

• Farewelled by a bevvy of beauties – all really sad as he left.

3 years later, at Heathrow, the conversation just started where we had left off.

I had a 12 month posting in the Midlands.

Paul had worked in Lausanne and in Geneva before moving to London – and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Many weekends we spent together – his flat in Hamstead the base – a wonderful introduction for me.

• And I met Gill. That bevvy of beauties in Sydney would wait in vain.

• One highlight of many – seeing Jack Brabham out smart a surging Graham Hill at Silver-stone and speaking to these masters after the race. Paul had the contacts to “get me in”

• Finally he guided me on a train tour – France, Switzerland and Germany

10 years passed before we met again – but we kept in touch.

His recently found diary notes give his career details. He and I seldom talked careers.

• In ’62 he started an English language news service for Swiss Radio International in Berne. Then a year with Reuters, London.

• UPI again called and in ‘64 he was suddenly transferred to Paris – life changed.

• But for the free phone calls – from the BBC (at Gill’s end) and UPI – the romance with Gill might have floundered.

• They were married in the November.

• To the delight of their many friends they set up home floating on the Seine for 23 years. When Ozy arrived he took that eccentric choice of home in his stride.

• Paris exposed Paul to news in France and French speaking Africa – and allowed him to cover motor racing professionally – Le Mans, Monte Carlo and others.

• He moved in ‘67 – to edit journals for the British and American Chambers of Commerce – he missed the challenge and the drama of “real” journalism.

• But had the flexibility to spend many weekends in London where his mother was in hospital dying from cancer.

• Then in ‘69, after a brief return to UPI, he was head hunted by Associated Press

• He stayed for 18 years, becoming news editor and No 2 in the Paris bureau.

This really suited him.

• He became AP’s motor racing expert in Europe, covering personally up to eight grand prix each year; but with contacts and

• Able to hand race coverage to a press room associate if a “real world” event developed.

• …….. refugees fleeing the Congo to Belgium, a Papal visit to Paris.

He covered major events in Europe ………:

• North Sea oil well blow outs;

• The Heysel football stadium disaster in Brussels; and

• The Spirit of Free Enterprise ferry disaster in Zeebrugge, Belgium

His Swiss passport gave him visa-free entry to the Middle East and to North Africa where

• His skills with French-keyboard telex machines was a real advantage

• for such events as

• The Moroccan invasion of Spanish Sahara; and

• In Algiers for the US hostage crisis in Tehran

These excursions could involve 24 to 48 hour non-stop stints running on adrenalin – but what wonderful dinner table stories!

In the early ‘80s, he became a specialist on AIDS research. He covered the ‘85 World AIDS Conference .

• In ‘87 he offered to write a regular newsletter on developments in AIDS for WHO, just as

• Liz Aves was offering him a PR job with the Tyrell team – but with a deadline –

• On that deadline he accepted the Tyrell offer.

• Next day the WHO agreed to his AIDS proposal

• But too late. Committed to F1 for the rest of his working life –

• He and Gill returned to London.

I was only vaguely aware of all this.

In ’70, Paul & Gill were international guests when Barbara and I were married.

• The post honeymoon photos of us all sitting on the floor are among our treasures – our first home being almost furniture free.

In ’73 I travelled to London for the press release of my baby – the Australian Leyland P76 and

• chauffeured Paul to the British Grand Prix in one of the press cars – drawing quite some attention.

• Somehow Paul again had a pit pass for me.

Later that year he went, with a moment’s notice and an overnight bag, to Jordan to cover the Arab-Israeli war. He stayed 6 months and Gill and Oz joined him.

He later chortled as he described one expense claim:

• ”To purchase of one suit to interview King Hussein”

Over the next 40 odd years Barbara and I – with a daughter in London for 18 of those years – travelled more and Paul’s F1 travels took him to Australia annually for about a decade.

• We camped at each other’s homes, repaying the hospitality with slap up meals.

• We stayed on MV Almeria in Paris and woke to see the Pont Alexander Trois in the morning sun.

• We did London things

• We saw the impact of the London tornado of ‘87 on homes near the Ts.

• We had many Languid days at Canehan with Rosé in the garden for lunch and

o Wine over long discussions by the fire at night.

We were a foursome – the most valued by Barbara and me. Often courtesy of Gill’s Intergalactic Travel – we had wonderful excursions:

• Visiting the many historic places accessible from Canehan;

• Touring the Route Napoleon and a lovely meal overlooking Nice;

• As tourists in Hong Kong;

• Drinking in history around Venice;

• Cruising the Norwegian fjords; and

• Our last trip together in October last – Canehan through Holland to Amsterdam.

• All delightful – we always got on so well together.

These expeditions often began at railway stations.

• I have lasting image of Paul striding along a platform hand outstretched – always wearing that Akubra hat. You can take the boy out of Australia – but….

So, as Adlai Stephenson said of JFK:

“Today we mourn him. Tomorrow and tomorrow we will miss him”.

Farewell Paul, me ol’ cobber. I am honoured to have been your friend and to be speaking of you in this:

• the Journalists’ Church

• the Christopher Wren version of the churches that have stood on this site through the ages; and

• in Fleet St. where my father – your first employer – worked as a War Correspondent during WWII.

So it is here that I bid you Adieu.

“Things are all fairly negative at the moment,” he said. “The phrase ‘The great racetrack in the sky’ comes to mind, and at some point in the not too distance future”.

From the start, Paul had been entirely pragmatic about his cancer. He said that it was his own fault for having smoked all those cigarettes back in the old days, long before I knew him. That was Paul. He dealt with what came at him in life, calmly and logically.

I always felt he was a man who was at peace with himself and enjoying his journey of discovery through life. Discovery was the thing. He soaked up knowledge, was fascinated by a vast range of different and diverse subjects.

Paul was a man of vast culture. He was an expert in so many things: architecture, music, history, literature, technology, lawn mowing. He was an old fashioned professional journalist, with time for everyone, an enquiring mind and an ability to cut through things that were unimportant, to get to the important points. He was tenacious when he was chasing a story. I recall one occasion when Bernie Ecclestone unwisely introduced him to John Howard, the Prime Minister of Australia, not realizing that Paul was an Australian national and entirely up to speed with local politics. I have this splendid image of Treuthardt with Howard up against the wall of the Melbourne Media Centre and a small grey-haired man kicking Paul in the shins to try to stop the interrogation. Paul’s desire for knowledge extended in so many directions. I remember too some years ago Paul wanting to discover the story of Private Henry Lucas, a Britain soldier who lies all alone in a tiny churchyard near Canehan. Why was he there? What happened to him?

Paul and I were of a different generation, but we had much in common. Our many dinners when travelling were always entertaining, not least because they strayed away from Formula 1, which is not always the case in Grand Prix racing.

Paul was one of those rare human beings who believe in what the Americans call “paying it forward”, doing good deeds for the younger generations, in recognition for good deeds that were done for him when he was younger.

Bob Jennings, who sadly cannot be here today, wrote to me the other day from Australia: “When a race was announced for Adelaide I spoke to a lot of people, looking for help and someone suggested Treuthardt, the bloke from AP. Paul didn’t know who the hell I was, but he went to a bit of trouble to help me. When he moved to Tyrrell I started receiving press releases that were so well written you could just drop them straight into the paper. And then when he became a freelance journalist I snapped him up as The Advertiser’s GP correspondent. We became pretty good mates and worked well together; old-style journos tend to see things the same way.”

I have a very clear recollection of the first time Paul and I met. It was at the Le Mans 24 Hours in 1986, when he was still with Associated Press.

He was using the weirdest machine I had ever seen, which involved him climbing inside a strange bubble device in order to send his messages. I think it was basically an acoustic coupler with a tent-like structure designed to try to keep out extraneous noises, but with loud racing cars passing all the time, I do recall it was not the most efficient of devices.

That night Jo Gartner was killed in an accident out in the darkness on the Mulsanne Straight. Paul and I were the only people in the press grandstand at the time and we worked together to gather what information we could in the days before mobile phones and Radio Le Mans. We became firm friends after that and soon afterwards he turned up working with Tyrrell and then later returned to journalism as a freelance F1 reporter.

Along the way we decided to become travelling companions. Formula 1 journalists tend to travel in pairs because it is more cost-effective that way – and more fun. And we continued to travel together until his retirement about 10 years later. This era coincided with the beginning of the internet age and we found ourselves pioneers in this remarkable revolution.

When we started out we had left telex behind and were using the magical fax machines and then this strange thing called e-mail began.

On arrival in foreign parts, we would check into our hotels. We never shared rooms – I’m too old for that sort of thing, he said – but excitedly we would reported to one another what we had found under the beds, as we explored ways to hack into telephone systems.

We became experts in ripping these systems apart and wiring our computers into the systems. On Monday mornings we repaired the damage as best we could and departed, taking our penknives, screwdrivers, crocodile clips and glue with us.

Paul was fascinated by new technology. Last year, when paying a visit to Canehan, I discovered my original Tandy 200 computer – long forgotten by me – had become part of his personal museum of modern journalism.

Paul became my mentor, my sounding board and very often my editor, he was entirely patient despite my complete inability to proof read with any great success. When I wrote an article it was finished as soon I typed the word “ends” at the bottom. I was entirely jealous of his ability to polish words. No matter how hard I tried, I could never get my eyes to see mistakes that Paul would pick up.

When David Tremayne and I began producing an electronic magazine 10 years ago, Paul appointed himself as our proof-reader and any howlers were reported back almost as soon as the magazine appeared, enabling us to make corrections within minutes. He did it because he liked things to be right. It was the same with my blog.

Paul loved quirky facts about the world around him. This made travelling with a pleasure because wherever we went, we learned. I am not sure that we learned very much driving around Japan with a Japanese map, reading Japanese road signs by stopping an comparing the symbols on the map, but we certainly had an interesting time, not least because we did this in the dark, on roads with four foot drops on either side, when Paul had lost the use of one eye. It was nonetheless a great adventure.

He would tell marvelously unlikely stories of his adventures in real world journalism, but you always knew that they were true. His knowledge was astonishing and he was forever recommending that I read books about the Silk Road or Buzkashi, a game in which players on horseback battle to place the carcass of a dead goat in the goal of the opposite side. I never ceased to be amazed by his knowledge, be it about the strange history of the enclaves of Belgium where there are bits of Belgium inside bits of the Netherlands, inside bits of Belgian. If you don’t believe me go home and ask Google the word Baarle-Nassau.

He and Gill became part of my extended family, adored by my wife Brigitte and my son William, who still talks with joy of the epic games of Escape from Colditz and Uno that were played on the kitchen table at Canehan. When I think of Paul the word warm always comes to mind. He would check the state of my tyres to make sure they were safe for driving and tell me off if they needed changing.

In his latter years Paul started a blog , appropriately named The Old Hack. At the top of this was a photo of a bottle of rosé and an Akubra hat, sitting on a table in the garden at Canehan.

“This,” he wrote, “is meant to symbolize my favourite pastime, rosé on a summer’s evening in our garden, and to give a clue to one of my two nationalities…. I would have put an edelweiss on the table if I could have found one.”

Perhaps now he is enjoying himself at the great racetrack in the sky, but I hope that he takes some time off for the occasional rosé in the garden.

somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond
any experience, your eyes have their silence:
in your most frail gesture are things which enclose me,
or which i cannot touch because they are too near

your slightest look easily will unclose me
though i have closed myself as fingers,
you open always petal by petal myself as Spring opens
(touching skilfully,mysteriously) her first rose

or if your wish be to close me, i and
my life will shut very beautifully, suddenly,
as when the heart of this flower imagines
the snow carefully everywhere descending;

nothing which we are to perceive in this world equals
the power of your intense fragility: whose texture
compels me with the colour of its countries,
rendering death and forever with each breathing

(i do not know what it is about you that closes
and opens;only something in me understands
the voice of your eyes is deeper than all roses)
nobody, not even the rain, has such small hands

23 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

² He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.

³ He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

⁴ Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.

⁵ Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.

⁶ Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

Our revels now are ended: These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capp’d towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind: we are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep.