Benny (RIP) was my class mate in Sacred heart/Goan School Mombasa  Kenya in the early ‘60s. We both had keen interest in playing the guitar and liked music of “The Shadows” having just acoustic guitars. Benny told me he would come over to my apartment building we could try out
playing some music, he faithfully would bring his guitar and and we would  practice in the stairwell of the building. He played lead and taught me the chords for some Shadows instrumental tunes and was polite and he was would never get upset if I made a mistake  but would stop and correct me. We both decided to create an electric guitar as we dare not ask our parents to buy us one. We set out to get some wood, shaped the guitars like the Fender Stratocaster the Shadows used, painted it Red and used cycle spokes for frets!. For the Guitar Pickups  we used the telephone mouth piece which were given to us by a friends father who worked  for the Telephone  Company.  Benny drew the outline shape of both guitars.
It was not to long when  “Connie Kit & his Pirates”  a local band in Mombasa called him to join  in the band,  where he played and later
formed his own band the Shiftars. I then joined another band  “The Jets” and switched over to play Lead.  
The last I met Benny and Cecila in 2009 when I was in the UK for The Shadows Final Reunion Concert at the O2 Arena and it happened to be our class Reunion which was organized by Cecilia, we had a few class mates from other Countries  and met  up at a Pub in London. Benny and I had very long chat of the good days back in Mombasa, he was at times very emotional when he spoke  about playing with The Shiftars and missed it.
Cecilia has been in touch with me for a long time and we feel the pain she is going through the loss, it also  brought us closer as her Mother Virginia  (RIP)was a good friend of my mother in law Melinear, which we realised a few years back. May Benny Soul Rest in Peace. I do miss him. 

Basil DeSouza