Ron Norton worked for Fairfax’s Canberra newspapers for the Times stablemate Canberra News afternoon daily soon after its first edition hit the streets in September 1974 with the late Jack Allsopp as editor and then was appointed Chief Sub Editor.  

At the same time, he wrote golf and speedway columns for the sports editor Bob Gordon.

Ron began his journalist career as a cadet with The Guardian at Cowra and remained there for 15 years before advancing to senior journalist, assistant editor and sports editor.

Before joining The Guardian Ron worked at Edgells Cannery as one of two closer boys. The other was Jimmy Glover with whom he shared day and night shifts each fortnight stacking cans from a closer into trolleys ready for the cooking vats.

Ron was among the Cowra High School students who arrived at Cowra Railway station in the early hours of 5 August 1944 when the Japanese prisoners broke out of the POW Camp. They had been to Young for an inter-school sports day. During his 15 years at The Guardian he had the pleasure of interviewing the Coroner, Cowra’s Fred Arnold, who presided over the inquest into the mass deaths in the POW outbreak. The inquest details had been kept under wraps for some years because there were fears of reprisals against Australian prisoners of war in Japan.

Throughout his journalism cadetship he had a good tutor in Jack Sullivan, brother of The Guardian editor Bob Sullivan. 

He made many lifelong friends at The Guardian, including Fred Flint and the Anderson brothers, Leo, Les and Pat. It was the days of hot metal newspaper production and on publication day early starts often lit the molten lead linotype gaspots for Pat Anderson to “set” the advertisements for the day’s issue. As he progressed through his  journalism career he witnessed all the huge changes in the printing industry from hot metal to total computerisation.

He left Cowra in 1960 to take up an offer of assistant editor at the Forbes Advocate.

When he resigned, colleague and friend the late Barry Doyle, applied for his sports job and was appointed by then editor Bob Sullivan.

Then followed editing stints Cessnock, Dubbo, the Central Coast and Canberra where he has lived for the past 50 years.

He was editor of the Cessnock Eagle when it won the prestigious New South Wales Country Press Association Award for Editorial Leadership in Community Affairs in 1963/64.

He moved to Dubbo as editor of the Daily Liberal and associated weekly newspapers in 1965.

He was also editor of the Daily Liberal when it won another Country Press Award for best Special Supplement marking the proclamation of Dubbo as a city in 1966.

From there the family moved to Wyong on the Central Coast in 1967 and to Canberra in 1969.

Along the way Ron trained a number of young journalists, most notable being John Westacott, former Channel Nine Sydney News Director and Executive Producer of the Channel‘s flagship programs A Current Affair and Sixty Minutes.

Ron moved his late wife Molly and young family to the Canberra suburb of Downer early in 1969 to launch Canberra’s first Sunday Newspaper, Sunday Post for a group of ACT Greek businessmen led by the late Nick Ellis, including the Kondouros and Efkarpidis families.

The Post launched on 19 January 1969 and shortly after Ron was appointed its managing editor.

However, the newspaper fell victim to the national Capital’s reluctance to accept free newspapers against the recognised media of the day and closed its doors on 28 April, 1974.

Four years earlier Ron had been asked to work part time as media manager and trackside commentator at Canberra’s new Speedway, Tralee/Fraser Park under manager Peter Gurbiel.

He was there for the opening meeting in 21 June 1970.

When the Sunday Post ceased publication, he was offered the position at the speedway on a full-time basis, working from Peter Gurbiel’s home in Queanbeyan and the speedway at Tralee Station.

While there he also produced and presented weekly programs for Radio 2CA and then Canberra’s only TV station CTCTV7 from studios on Black Mountain Tower.

He then applied for a position at The News and was appointed to the sub-editors’ desk and shortly after as chief sub-editor.

A few days before the News’ final edition in June 1994, Ron was offered a position as managing editor of Canberra’s second free weekly newspaper News Limited’s Cumberland Newspaper group’s Canberra Advertiser.

The first free weekly was the Courier launched in 1966 by close friend and fellow Coalfields journalist John Richardson.

Ron continued to work as ACT representative of Cumberland Newspapers launching several other publications, Sunday Life, Canberra Southern and Northern Standards before applying for a position with The Canberra Times and was appointed to a senior journalist role on the sub-editors’ desk under Ian Matthews as editor.

Soon after he was appointed chief sport sub-editor when Jim Darling was transferred to the general news desk.

From there, he and son-in-law, Lindsay Gallagher launched Canberra Sports Weekly, The Raider Newspaper and the popular Tuggeranong Valley View which later was bought by the Wagga Daily Advertiser and finally by the Canberra Times.

Ron was an inaugural member of the Canberra Raiders Rugby League club in 1982 and has remained a strong supporter, through good and bad times, since, witnessing NRL premierships in 1989, 1990 and 1994.

He was a co-sponsor with Lennock Motors, and TAA, in the Raiders Players of the Year Award for the first two years, John Hardy in 1982 and Chris O’Sullivan in 1983.

His wife, Molly, with whom he had 11 children from Cowra to Dubbo, passed away in Canberra Hospital on Christmas night 2014.

The couple celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1999 at their daughter Darleen’s home in Jerrabomberra before leaving for their ancestral homes, in Ireland as guests of their son Glenn and his family in 1999.

They had been married 64 years when Molly passed away in 2014.

In between times, Ron worked part-time as media adviser to ACT Government Whip Harold Hird in the Carnell and Humphries’ Governments in 2001 and 2002.

Ron married Moly Anastasia Grant, daughter of Edward Patrick and Margaret Albertha Grant of Lachlan Street, Cowra, on 26 February, 1949.

Their 11 children, 88 children, grand-children and great-great-grand-children, will be coming from Melbourne, all over NSW, including their home town Cowra, for the family’s first-ever reunion in the Brindabella Room at the Lanyon Vikings Club on Canberra Day, Sunday March 10.

The reunion has been organised by Ron and Molly’s daughters, Kerriane Baker and Darlene Keenan.

His birthday is the following day, Monday March 11.

Ron and Molly moved from a Canberra ACT Housing property at Duffy in Weston Creek to Tuggeranong in 1974 and have remained there ever since.

Today Ron lives alone, with the help of family members, in an ACT Housing Aged Pensioner Unit in Gordon which he and his late wife occupied until 2014.

Ron recently spent almost a month in Canberra Hospital’s Acute Surgical Unit following surgery and emergency surgery in December and January.

His brothers and sisters-in-law Ray and Jill Norton, Colin and Sylvia Norton, still live in Cowra.

Since his retirement, Ron has written and self-published three family history books Along The Nine Mile, My Mother Always Cried and When Times Were Tough.

He continues to edit books for other authors and currently has another four books in type, Condemned, a dramatic novel, written with author Laraine Dillon; They Never Came Home, the story of his own family’s involvement in South Australia’s infamous Truro Murders; The Boy From the Bush, his own life story, and; Hope in the Unknown, the story of the Hancy families in the UK and Australia from 1801.

He is a regular member of the congregation at Holy Family Catholic Church in Gowrie.

Also making news:

The 80s make a comeback at Bilyara

Fun galore during Cowra's Seniors Week activities