A DEDICATED community activist has won his town's first award named after a local legend.
Father-of-two Scott Mackay, 42, was presented with the first Provost Ferrier Citizenship Award for h
is unstinting work within the Armadale community.
The award is dedicated to Armadale's last surviving town councillor, Willie Ferrier, who died in December last year.
Mr Ferrier served two terms as the town's Provost, and is the only one to have welcomed the reigning monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, to the town in 1955. He also convened the last ever meeting of the town council in 1975.
Mr Mackay, who owns fast food takeaway shop McMex, is a serving community councillor who has dedicated countless hours of his time to improving his local community.
He is part of the management group which has also overseen the refurbishment of the community centre over the past two years and has helped youngsters from deprived areas in the town through inclusion projects.
He said: "To be honest, I feel highly embarrassed about the award. I worked with Willie Ferrier on the community council and he served the community for 55 years right up to the end of his days. You just don't get that nowadays.
"One of the things we did with the kids was a DVD project where kids produced one for a national competition and they finished second out of 100 entries.
"These kids hadn't even seen a video camera before so to do what they did reflects greatly on them. We have money to do things like this but the problem is getting people to get involved."
Mr Ferrier's links and devotion to the town are vast after serving as a trade unionist during his career as a moulder in the local Atlas steel foundry for 48 years.
He was the lead cornet player for the Armadale Burgh Band, and his service to the community didn't end when he retired from local government after his second spell as civic head.
He joined the newly-created Armadale Community Council in 1975 and was still active as its vice-chairman until a few months before his death at the age of 96.
Mr Ferrier's daughter, Muriel, decided to offer a cup in honour of her father for citizenship and contribution to the life of the town.
Community council chairperson Elizabeth Hands said: "Mr Ferrier was an Armadale man in so many ways and contributed across a wide range of aspects of the life of the town.
"We are pleased that Scott Mackay has agreed to accept this honour for his hard work, not just this year but over a number of years."
Armadale councillor Stuart Borrowman added: "I knew Mr Ferrier for a long time and was honoured to be asked to take a cord at his funeral. Scott is a very worthy winner of this award. He has put in not just the time but also the ideas to so many organisations and initiatives that will benefit the town."
