‘We had some great times’

Regular readers will have spotted the All Stars Steel Band in last week’s Gladstone Carnival column. Today the focus is on band member Ronnie Simmons aka Phantom .

His widow Diane told me he was born in St Vincent in 1940 and came to England in the early 60s. They lived in Gladstone Street for 25 years and he worked at Perkins for 35 years until early retirement, when they went to live in Spain, where he sadly passed in 2009.

“He played in steel bands for about 30 years,” she told me. “We had some great times back then.”

The second image features Martin Orr and his Cadillac. I worked with Martin as a porter at PDH in the seventies.