Meet Beryl: Championing sport for disabled people across Staffordshire
Beryl Horton has been an active volunteer in East Staffordshire for over 42 years. She was honoured in the New Year Honours with a British Empire Medal (BEM) for her voluntary service to disability sport in her area. Here, we find out a bit more about her support for disabled people to take part in sport.
Beryl, 73, has made it her mission to provide sport for disabled people in the area for over four decades. She is well-known across the Staffordshire area and has been recognised for her work before. Last year she became an Olympic torchbearer during the Derby to Nottingham leg of the Olympic relay.
At her home, in Hall Lane, Willington, Beryl modestly talks about her work:
“We don’t volunteer for this work to get recognition and glory, we do it because we enjoy it and just to see their faces when they win a medal it is all worth it.”
Beryl and her husband, Murray, have a disabled son and daughter. The couple is the club leader and secretary of CREST, which provides activities for its disabled members aged between 10 and into their 60s.
As part of her voluntary work, she has driven disability sports provision in East Staffordshire for over four decades. In 1971, she began working to raise money to build a swimming pool for Springfield Junior School, in Swadlincote, after her daughter, Susan, enrolled.
For many years, she has organised a disabled swimming club for people in Burton and went on to become the national swimming team leader for Mencap for more than 20 years. Beryl has also played a leading role in the formation of the East Staffordshire Able Too Forum. In this role she has played an integral role in raising £75,000 of funding over the past 10 years to allow the activities to develop. She spends her evenings and weekends coaching Unihoc and swimming and runs a weekly youth club.
When she joined what was to become CREST, the group had ‘a few jigsaws’ and 10 members. Beryl proudly points out it now boasts 87 members, with many taking part in five-side football matches, cricket as well as the swimming galas, including competitions in Geneva.
Beryl continues:
“I love to see people enjoying themselves, going from someone who cannot swim and are terrified of water to taking part in their first competition and winning three medals.”
With a total of eight children as well as grandchildren to keep their hands full, Beryl says she is grateful to a dedicated group of volunteers who help to keep the sessions running.
In recent years, the Horton's charitable work has also taken them to eastern Europe where they have become involved with a project helping children in Romania.
Adapted from a Burton Mail article
