THIS year’s St Helens Adult Learner’s Week Event saw one of the town’s very own golden oldies honoured for a staggering track record of voluntary work spanning more than 35 years.

When Eddie McConville, once a worker at the Gloster Glass Company, attended the event on Saturday May 14 he knew he’d be awarded something – but he had no idea that it would be a Voluntary Award commemorating his years of dedication. He told the Star his fascinating story.

It all started in 1977, when Eddie, who is unmarried and without children, helped to found the Derbyshire Hill Tenants’ Association. At first his intention was just to make up numbers, but within two weeks he was chair.

“I stayed on because I didn’t want to let them down,” he explained. “Residents associations were generally unheard of back then and there wasn’t much in the way of help off the council and police. We needed a go-between.

“The association was started to get fencing on open-plan gardens so residents could enjoy the privacy they were entitled to. It was Rob Young, chief executive of Helena Housing, who pulled through for us.”

Nowadays, Eddie remains just as passionate about residents’ rights. With the Housing Federation that he helped to found in 1978, he is working to raise awareness of issues that social changes by the government are bringing about.

“The way things are now, there aren’t enough houses for everyone, but there are people out there with spare rooms. The problem is, if residents do the kind thing and put these homeless people up in their spare rooms, as many are doing, they can have their benefits taken away from them.

“We’ve got a committee going who are dedicated to changing this. People are being sanctioned for their kindness.”

In 1986, Eddie was nominated for the Merseyside Citizen of the Year Award by Derbyshire Hill’s local bobby, Jim Scotson, who was, to quote Eddie, ‘one of the best we ever had’.

Eddie achieved second place and was admirably humble about his achievement. “I was nice to be recognised, and I think the man who came first was very deserving. He was a vicar who did a lot of work looking after the disabled in his parish.” His trophy was presented by Kenneth Stoddart, Lord Lieutenant for Merseyside.

Four years earlier, Eddie had founded yet another vital community resource in Derbyshire Hill. The Family Centre that he’d poured so much money and effort into was what he invited Stoddart back to after receiving his award. Stoddart and his wife arrived when some of the older ladies who used the centre were having a craft morning. When asked by the Lord Lieutenant where the money came from for materials, the ladies informed them that they held regular jumble sales to raise funds.

It seemed that this visit planted an idea in Kenneth Stoddart’s head. Several months later, Eddie was surprised to see a gleaming Rolls Royce pull up outside the centre – Stoddart and his wife had returned, with a generous donation of bags of jumble for the ladies’ sale.

“It’s nice that my receiving the second place award led on to that,” said Eddie on Stoddart’s donation. “It was really through him giving me the award and me inviting him back that it happened.”

Still hugely involved with the Family Centre, Eddie is now treasurer. Since coming to the role he has worked to get the centre out of an £8000 debt (which took 7 months), renovated the whole building and garden and worked to maintain it as an invaluable community building.

Eddie’s compassion goes beyond just people. For well over thirty years it has been his dream to create an animal sanctuary in St Helens. ‘The St Helens White Cross Animal Sanctuary’, as it would be called, would be a home and service for stray and neglected animals.

“We got stuck into the White Cross project about twenty years ago,” Eddie recalls. “In 2002 we started a massive campaign to raise money and we have about £5000.”

While this is an impressive feat, Eddie acknowledges that they still have a long way to go. “To complete the sanctuary, we’d need about £2million. There’s so much we’d have to consider – building, drains, boundaries – noise pollution is an issue and we can’t find anywhere in St Helens far enough from residential areas. We’d also have to consider the cost of maintenance.”

After Eddie received his Voluntary Award in Church Square, he made a speech in which his modesty shone through. “It’s very nice to be recognised for what I’ve done but what people don’t realise is that there are hundreds more people who help to make these things happen. People who do cleaning and gardening and maintaining the community centres – in a way it’s sad that there aren’t more of these awards for all these people. So when I receive this award, I’m receiving it for them.”

Despite his age and the fact that he has already done several lifetimes’ worth of work, Eddie is adamant that he won’t be winding down any time soon. He still has several projects on the go that he would like to see come to fruition. We say good luck to him!