Standing up to sectarianism and racism has been something of a lifetime crusade for Creetown’s Eddie McGaw.
Just like the great Jock Stein before him, the 52-year-old despises bigotry in all forms.
A lifelong Celtic fan, Eddie is a Protestant whose father, also Eddie, and grandfather John were active in the local Church of Scotland.
Both were beadles at Gatehouse kirk – and in 1960 Eddie became the youngest in Scotland to hold the role aged just 17.
Eddie Snr and John were also mad-keen Hoops supporters – but Eddie has no idea why.
Although he was brought up in Kelloholm and Hamilton, all the McGaws hailed from Galloway where historically football loyalties were not bound up with religion.
“My whole family has always been Celtic, my father and grandfather before me,” says Eddie proudly. “And it’s followed all the way through.”
“When I was three I remember my dad going to see Celtic play Ajax in March, 1971. I still have the programme in the house.
“I never asked them why they supported Celtic. There were no Catholics in the family – but that didn’t matter at all.”
Eddie, who celebrates his 53rd birthday next week, was brought up in Kelloholm’s Sandy Knowe Crescent, a beer can throw across the park from the Kelloholm Arms, known then as “The Jungle”.
His railwayman dad, also Eddie, was born in Kirkcowan and his mum was Isabel Gray, whose father owned the shop in Twynholm and stayed at Braeside beside it.
The couple moved to Upper Nithsdale after the Dumfries to Stranraer line closed under the Beeching cuts in 1965.
“My dad got the job as signalman at Kirkconnel Station,” Eddie recalls.
“Before they moved they were the last family to stay in the railwayman’s cottage at Gatehouse Station.
“My dad was the signalman there and he and mum got moved in 1967.
“My grannie and grandpa had stayed there before them – he was signalman there too.”
Eddie has many memories as a three year-old – one being the soup equivalent of Whisky Galore!
“I mind one time being in the car on the A76 near Sanquhar when my mother was pregnant with my brother,” laughs Eddie.
“We were going down to Twynholm to see grannie and grandpa and this goods train had crashed off the embankment up above the road.
“The derailed wagons were carrying a load of canned foods and they had spilled all over the place.
“So we filled the car up with tins of Campbell’s meatballs and soups – there were loads of folk doing it. We were very well stocked for a wee while!”
Eddie attended Kelloholm Primary School and vividly recalls one highlight from 1977.
“I was page boy in the royal party at the Kirkconnel and Kelloholm Gala,” laughs Eddie. “I was carrying the crown on a red cushion dressed in blue and white – and I was a Celtic supporter.
“We sat on a lorry and went all the way round Kirkconnel and Kelloholm. I served the queen for the only time in my life!”
In 1979, when Eddie was 12, the McGaw family moved to Hamilton in Lanarkshire after Eddie senior landed a job with Prudential Insurance.
And the flit came as good news to the former local monarch and her family.
“The lassie who was the queen that day got our old house,” smiles Eddie.
“As far as I know she’s still there yet.”
At Hamilton Eddie became a pupil at Earnock High School where his love of Glasgow Celtic was viewed with a mixture of disbelief and curiosity by Rangers fans, not least because he was Protestant.
“It was very much a Rangers-orientated school,” smiles Eddie.
“But it was a good school and I enjoyed it.
“I played football with Rangers player Derek Ferguson at break times – he played all the football and we just tried to get the ball off him.
“I remember Derek making his debut for Rangers on a Wednesday night League Cup game against Hearts.
“He was only 16 and still in fifth year and he came into school the next day just the same.
“All my pals were big Rangers fans – I think there were only five Celtic fans in the whole school.”
“Sometimes the teachers would ask me why I supported Celtic when my family was Protestant,” remembers Eddie.
“I would always say ‘what’s religion got to do with it?’
“Sometimes I would walk out of classes when I was asked that.
“I told my English teacher ‘report me to the headmaster if you want – I don’t care. I’m here to learn English – not for a lesson in sectarianism and bigotry’.
“She apologised to me the next day and I accepted it.
“I don’t think she expected a 15-year-old to say that to her.”
By this time Eddie senior had landed a promotion with the Pru in Galloway and the family moved down on May 27, 1984 – the eve of Eddie’s 16th birthday.
After three months in Port William, the family moved to Creetown – Eddie’s home to this day.
He started work straight away at a workshop on the Station Yard Industrial Estate in Newton Stewart – on a YTS trainee wage of £25.50 a week plus £1.50 travelling expenses.
“One job was at the former bobbin mill at Gatehouse – now the Mill on the Fleet,” he recalls.
“It was under the Manpower Services Commission and there was a squad of 30 of us, split into two teams of 15.
“It was just labouring – taking all the ivy away and digging out all the muck and rubble before they started the proper renovation work.”
Aged 20, Eddie got a job with Tyre Services in Newton Stewart – and ended up working there under various ownerships for 32 years.
New Year’s Day 1986 was a big date in his life – he met Creetown girl and wife-to-be Alison.
“We already kent each other but that was the first time we got together,” he says.
“We’ve got three daughters now - Zoe, Amy and Kristin – and four grandweans.”
Football-daft Eddie was soon active in the sport locally – but his involvement was tinged with tragedy.
“My dad started Ferrytoon FC in 1987 but he died from a heart attack in 1991. He was only 47.
“It was on the first day of his holiday in Blackpool – the same day a big Russian ship arrived at the granite crusher at Creetown.
“I took a video of it for my father to watch when he came back – but he never lived to see it.
“Three weeks after he died I was sitting waiting for a Formula 1 race to come on, which he loved.
“I shouted ‘Dad, here’s the grand...’ then a split second later remembered he wasn’t there any more.”
Following his father’s untimely death, Eddie disbanded the club and after a spell with Dalry played with Fleet Star for five years.
The Gatehouse club then had a strong Ferrytoon contingent – which set Eddie thinking.
“Five or six of us were going down from Creetown every Sunday,” Eddie explains.
“So I thought why don’t we start up our own football team again?
“And we did – we were Creetown FC reserves for two years at first but then we came back under Ferrytoon FC.
“We had a long-lasting sponsorship deal with Auchenlarie which ran from 2000 until we finished in 2015.
“Playing for Fleet Star was a big thing for me as my dad played for them in the early sixties.
“To follow in his footsteps was a really big deal.”
The Stewartry Sunday League was competitive – and the Ferrytoon took a while to get into contention for silverware.
“The years from 2000 to 2006 were trophy-less for us,” recalls Eddie.
“Then we won a cup four or five years running. But 2013 was our highlight in the Stewartry Sunday League.
“That’s when we won the league and two cups to get the treble.”
Two years before their historic achievement the club only had to beat the Royal at Kirkcudbright to win the league.
Their rivals were missing six players through work commitments – but a freak accident wrecked their chances.
“On the way there three of our cars were involved in pile-up when a car pulled out at Auchenlarie,” Eddie recounts.
“We never got to the game – and the Royal had a full squad for the replay because the fishing boats were back in – and we lost.”
Always active outside work commitments, Eddie is a big supporter of good causes at home and abroad.
One memorable occasion was a charity match between Ferrytoon FC and Kilmarnock FC Ladies in aid of the Southern General.
In the pub after the game Eddie counted the proceeds at £950 – and went beyond the call of duty to break four figures.
“I told the bar that if they put £50 in a pint glass I would wear a Rangers shirt for two minutes,” he laughs.
“Everybody was taking pictures and taking the mickey – but I was not caring because it was for a good cause.”
“My mum Isabel was heavily involved with Creetown Gala and the community council.
“She was into everything – she liked a wee nosey and a gossip.
“She did a lot of charity work and was always raising money for the old folks’ Christmas party and summer trips.
“I suppose in a way a lot of what she did has rubbed off on me.”
Meanwhile, Eddie formed the Creetown and District Celtic Supporters Club in 2002.
And it was through the Glasgow club’s work abroad that his charity work went international after he was one of 22 Celtic Charity Fund volunteers who visited Nakuru in Kenya in 2011.
The group spent 10 days working in local schools – and Eddie vowed to continue the project.
Every October since – last year excepted – he, Wigtown woman Ann Todd and other volunteers spent two weeks in Kenya.
Ahead of each trip various fundraisers are organised to pay for food parcels and school packs for pupils living around a dump site in a slum area of the city.
Ann, meanwhile, makes reusable sanitary products and underwear for women and girls and sells home-made crafts at the Barholm Centre in Creetown and local markets.
Some 40 dwellings have been built at the site through the work of Project Nakuru with water tanks installed to cut the risk of disease.
However, the lifeline initiative has been dealt a blow with the loss of its main Kenyan contact.
“Sammy, who was brought up on the dump site and became the local MP, died last year,” explains Eddie.
“We could send money across to him no problem knowing he would spend it in the right place. It has left a massive hole.
“He was our best pal in Kenya – now we have to build up a rapport with somebody else.”
At home, Eddie somehow finds time to run Creetown Youth Club for P3-P7 kids helped by a team of four volunteers plus parents.
The Scotland-Kenya link also saw a letters exchange set up between Creetown school pupils and their counterparts in Nakuru’s Walk Centre School.
Now Kenyan slum kids can be seen wearing tops donated by schoolchildren in Galloway.
“There’s weans running about Nakuru today with Minnigaff, Gatehouse and Creetown sweatshirts on,” says Eddie proudly.
At work, Eddie became his own boss when Eddie’s Mobile Tyres hit the road in June 2020.
“I’m really happy with it,” he says. “It’s going a lot better than I thought it would have done.
“Lockdown I think has helped because a lot more folk are at home and are happy to get stuff done at the house.”
