Elvis and Roy Orbison impersonator wins Fold awards

Thomas McGilloway not only won the Best kept Garden award for his work on the Lavery Fold’s garden, but was shocked to learn that other residents had voted for him as their Best Neighbour as well.

“I started work on the garden at the Fold last year and it was in a bad way, but I just worked at it until I got it into shape. Then the supervisor, Eva said to me about the competition and I put in for it, never thinking I would win anything,” said Thomas.

The Lavery Fold garden is quite large and it took Thomas a full six months to reclaim it and turn it from wilderness into an attractive space for residents to sit and enjoy the outdoors.

Asked how he reacted when he found out he had won, Thomas said simply: “Shocked”.

A tenant of the Fold for the past 10 years, Thomas is known to fellow residents as a bit of a handyman and is frequently called upon for any little ‘fix-it’ jobs from changing bulbs to putting up pictures, sorting blockages and silencing squeaky hinges.

What he did not know when he attended the awards ceremony in Cookstown last Wednesday, was that his fellow residents had nominated him for the Best Neighbour category in the awards, and he remained in blissful ignorance of the fact until he saw his name flash up on a large screen at the event declaring him the winner.

“I was over the moon about it”, he said of his nomination and win.

“I could not believe it, that a lot of people went to the trouble of voting for me. I am delighted to win the garden award too. A lot of work went into getting it cleared, lifting all the leaves and weeds and sorting out the trees. It was badly overgrown,” he said, thanking his supervisor, the residents and the Fold Association for the nominations and awards.

In addition to his good deeds for the Fold, Thomas is also known for his charity work and for dressing up for events as Elvis, Roy Orbison, Mrs Doubtfire and Freddy Mercury. In fact Thomas has been impersonating Elvis for 30 years.