The pan fra­ter­ni­ty is mourn­ing yet an­oth­er loss. Ed­win Year­wood, hus­band of the late Mairoon Ali, died on Sat­ur­day. Year­wood, af­fec­tion­ate­ly known as Ed­die and Swanky Pops, was a ca­lyp­so and steel­pan en­thu­si­ast. Vet­er­an an­nounc­er Mervyn Telfer de­scribed Year­wood's death as sad. He said the loss was just one more blow to T&T's en­ter­tain­ment in­dus­try.

Telfer de­scribed Year­wood as a very ho­n­ourable man who passed on his love for en­ter­tain­ment to his sons, Olatun­ji Year­wood and Roland Ed­ward Year­wood, known in the mu­sic in­dus­try as Rem­bunkshun. He ex­tend­ed his con­do­lences to Year­wood's chil­dren and fam­i­ly. Pres­i­dent of Pan Trin­ba­go, Kei­th Di­az, said the loss was a great one to the fra­ter­ni­ty and ex­tend­ed con­do­lences to the fam­i­lies.

Di­az al­so con­firmed that Orville Wright was ad­mit­ted to hos­pi­tal and has since been dis­charged. The fu­ner­al ser­vice for Franklyn Ol­livier­ra will be held to­day at the Trin­i­ty Cathe­dral in Port-of-Spain at 9.30 am. Ol­livier­ra died last Wednes­day. He was award­ed the Longest Pan Play­er in Panora­ma Award at Pan Trin­ba­go's 2012 cer­e­mo­ny held at the Na­tion­al Acad­e­my of Per­form­ing Arts (NA­PA). He played for bands such High­landers, Star­lift and Phase 11.

About Year­wood

Year­wood was in­stru­men­tal in the for­ma­tion of Trin­ba­go Uni­fied Ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Or­gan­i­sa­tion (Tu­co) as well as play­ing a vi­tal role in Pan Trin­ba­go. He be­gan play­ing the steel­pan from as ear­ly as age 13 with Tripoli and then Star­lift. From there he went on to be­come the pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer (PRO) of the Third World Steel Or­ches­tra, a band he helped form. He lat­er moved to the Val­ley Harps at which he al­so be­came the PRO. Year­wood was al­so Pan Trin­ba­go's sec­re­tary for the North­ern Re­gion in the late 1970s. He worked at 91.9 FM teach­ing the pub­lic about pan on his pro­gramme, The Orig­i­nal Mag­ic of Pan.