AN inspirational late swimmer and coach is still helping young disabled athletes – 25 years after his death.

Peter Stanton, who passed away aged 59 in 1992, was not only an exceptional disability swimmer who competed in both the Paralympic and Commonwealth Games – he also helped others fulfil their dreams after his untimely death.

A memorial trust was set up by Inverclyde District Council after Peter passed away, with an award of £10,000 from the Common Good Fund in 1993 following representations from Port Glasgow Otters.

Since then, the trust has helped many talented young people to excel and four years ago the fund donated £3,000 to Inverclyde Leisure towards the cost of a fixed pool hoist which can lower people with limited mobility or disabilities into the water at Gourock Pool.

Its donations have proved to be a great comfort to Peter’s widow Sadie.
Sadie, now 80, said: “I miss him as if it were yesterday.

“The trust has helped to keep his memory alive and I think having the trust has helped me too.

“I’m a trustee on the board.

“It has helped lots of people with travel costs to get to their sports and accommodation.”

Sadie said a shipyard accident left her husband paralysed as a young man, but swimming helped give him a good life.

She said: “Peter was in the paralympic team and travelled all over the world.

“He had a good life even though he was young when he had his accident at Fairfields.

“He fell 40/50 feet off a ship.

“He was taken to the Southern General and then to Stoke Mandeville and that’s where it all started.

“All the Stanton family were swimmers and I think that’s what saved him. Peter was a great guy and we’d known each other for years through the Port Glasgow Baths.”

As well as his impressive career in the pool, Peter went on to coach the Port Glasgow Otters club for disabled swimmers. The couple had four children, Peter, Pauline, Louise and Greg, who sadly passed away last year, and four grandchildren.

Five years ago, in a cruel twist of fate, Sadie – who had been able bodied all her life – was struck down with a mystery virus which attacked her spine.

Since then she has been confined to a wheelchair like her beloved late husband. 

She said: “I never thought it would have happened to me.”

Sadie spent months at Inverclyde Royal Hospital and then in physiotherapy.

She said: “Every single one of those nurses were great. I was so sure that I would have walked out of there but then the doctor told me I had to make do with what I had and that was a big blow. I couldn’t stop crying that day.”

Sadie says her own disability makes her think of the scale of Peter’s achievements and how independent he was.

She said: “Peter was always so capable, it makes feel quite guilty of all the things I didn’t do for him.

“I’ve got an electric wheelchair, a wet room and all these council carers coming in, Peter never had anything like that, there wasn’t anything like that then.

“But he was very independent and he wouldn’t have wanted anything anyway and he instilled that into his swimmers Kenny Cairns and Margaret McEleny.

Councillor Jim MacLeod, who is also on the trust committee, knew Peter well and says he made a massive contribution to the community.

Jim said: “I had my accident in 1969 and in 1970, I started going to the Port Glasgow Otters and Peter was my coach. There was also Kenny Cairns, who went on to compete in five paralympic games, taking 13 medals, the famous Margaret McEleny and Isabel Newstead, who took part in seven paralympic games and won medals for three sports.

“I swam with Peter until I was 18 or 19 and he was a brilliant character and a great swimmer with great physique.

"Kenny, Isabel and Margaret all benefited from his coaching and he made a great contribution to the town and swimming. He inspired a lot of people and left a great legacy.”