"I'm the very first local bongo player, conga player, and timbales player . . . Nobody played those before me." So says the veteran entertainer Freeman 'King' Trott.

Young Freeman heard the music of Machito, Tito Puente and Chico Rodriguez and it fired his passion.

He bought his first pair of bongos from Max Lambert's Music Store which occupied the location where now the Lobster Pot stands on Bermudiana Road.

After he bought the drums, the 16-year-old put on his father's long trousers and went to sit in with Gandhi Burgess's band at The Savoy Night Club in the Victoria Hotel. He ought to have been 21 years old; he failed the moustache test, and they threw him out.

Kingsley Swan, Kenny Iris, Al Davis, Sid Ottley, Freddie Mathews the names of the now legendary band leaders trip off King's lips. He played with them all.

"My main thrust was soloing, sitting in with the bands to get experience, playing with dance bands, jazz bands, whatever. I played for every dancer in Bermuda at that time."

He lists them.

"Miriam and Kay, two sisters…

"My very first gig was at St. George Hotel. I was working in the dining room there. They heard about the guy beating the bongo drums because I practised all the time. I was living on Parson's Road with my mother. People could hear me practising all the time. I played the commercial drums as well. That was my last stop before taking up the guitar. I played flute too, for Graham Bean's band. I taught myself everything how to read music, everything.

"I worked for Brian Butterfield's band for many years, Kenny Bean, I played for Didi (the dancer), and then, who else? One of the most exciting things that I did was taking part in a movie they shot on Darrell's Island. They had Hubert Smith singing, Freddy Smith, guitarist, Stan Seymour, Celeste Robinson, Albert Fox on bass, and King Trott on congas and bongo drums. It was a promotional movie about Bermuda. I saw it in Jamaica. I opened the movie. I was the first person you'd see when the credits were rolling.

"I started out working in the Belmont Manor back in 1947 to '49 then I went to the St. George Hotel. The waiters used to sing! And I would play my bongos. The head waiter down there was Dad Smith. He made sure all the waiters were in early, the tables were looked after, and then we'd start singing!

"We put a group down there called The Heaters. There was Victor Roach, Buddy Foggo, 'Blue Eyes Trott', and Tacky. I never knew what his other name was. Then there was 'Jack Rabbit' Castle and King Trott. We used to put on shows... At the time Reggie Burch's band was there, so I sat in with them, too We're talking 1950 now…"

King went to work in Jamaica too.

"Sir Howard Trott hired a lot of Bermudian entertainers to work in the Half Moon Hotel. I think he had shares in that hotel down there in Montego Bay.

"He took Brian Butterfield. Lance Hayward was playing down there as well, with Max Smith, Tootsie Bean. The first time he took Norman Atwood and later Milt Robinson. Brian and I, we went down with Irma. Later we went with Cathy Bean.

"That was an experience. We worked seven nights a week in seven different hotels. It was a dining scene. Supper Club, you called it. We played from nine o'clock till about ten thirty. We played Half Moon Hotel, Bay Rock Hotel, Montego Beach, Casa Blanca, Royal Caribbean, Chatham and another place there that I forgot now.

"We practised all day long. There was no singing, just dancing and drumming. I had two sets of drum solos. Irma and Bryan did a sort of Calypso basket dance. We were backed up by all Jamaican bands... They had great musicians, the same as we had here."

Something dark had entered Trott's life; Glaucoma. In those days before laser surgery drops were the only available treatment. King was slowing losing his eyesight.

It's completely gone now but King's spirit moves forward unchanged. For years he could be seen at the airport with his partner in song, Wellington, doing what they do best, what 'The King' has always done: entertain.

Meanwhile he's found a new craft at The Beacon House where he spends the better part of a working day affixing straw to wooden stools, his fingers moving as nimbly as if they were in contact with the skins of his beloved drums.

And he's still the one and only, the King. Freeman 'King' Trott.

Long live the King.