Vet­er­an ca­lyp­so sax­o­phon­ist and band mu­si­cian Dr Roy Fran­cis Cape is cur­rent­ly ward­ed at the ex­tend­ed care unit at the San­gre Grande Hos­pi­tal where he is nurs­ing a frac­tured hip, sus­tained from a bad fall last Wednes­day.

In a tele­phone in­ter­view with Cape, 77, he said he was await­ing surgery, which is card­ed for Tues­day.

A frus­trat­ed sound­ing Cape who al­so sus­tained in­juries to his left knee in a pre­vi­ous ac­ci­dent a few weeks ago, cre­at­ing a chal­lenge for him to walk, bab­bled on about re­leas­ing him­self from the hos­pi­tal as he felt re­strict­ed not be­ing able to move.

“The way I am feel­ing here. I am giv­ing up. My knees are col­laps­ing on me. My hip is giv­ing away on me. I just fed up. I give up and surgery is quite Tues­day,” Cape lament­ed.

It start­ed as a thrilling day for Cape, last Wednes­day when he met up with fel­low ca­lyp­so­ni­ans Dr Hol­lis “Chalk­dust” Liv­er­pool, Wal­ton “Abu De En­ter­tain­er” Bark­er and Er­ic “Pink Pan­ther” Tay­lor, on the oc­ca­sion of the re­nam­ing of the San­gre Grande Monte Cristo Park to Tay­lor's name­sake.

The group of ca­lyp­so­ni­ans re­ferred to as “the icons” then spent part of their day vis­it­ing var­i­ous schools in the Va­len­cia and San­gre Grande ar­eas, en­ter­tain­ing chil­dren and giv­ing mo­ti­va­tion­al talks be­fore at­tend­ing a cer­e­mo­ny held by the San­gre Grande Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion to ho­n­our Liv­er­pool and Pan­ther. Cape was ho­n­oured pre­vi­ous­ly.

Close friend, Bark­er, 66, who al­so spoke with the Sun­day Guardian and who was there at the time of Cape's tum­ble, said the ac­ci­dent oc­curred when they were pro­ceed­ing back to their Orop­une Gar­dens res­i­dences.

“We went to put a do­na­tion box at Roy's mu­sic school and af­ter putting it, he walked across the street to buy two av­o­ca­dos by a ven­dor. When he was re­turn­ing to the ve­hi­cle, Cape, ap­par­ent­ly mis­judged the height of the pave­ment (side­walk), which was rel­a­tive­ly high­er than nor­mal and mak­ing a mis­step he fell on the road­way, where he frac­tured his left hip,” says Bark­er.

Cape's mu­si­cal ca­reer spans near six decades. In 2004 he was the re­cip­i­ent of a Hum­ming Bird (Gold) na­tion­al award, "for loy­al and de­vot­ed ser­vice to the na­tion" and, in 2011, an hon­orary doc­tor­ate from UWI was con­ferred on him. The ac­com­plished sax­o­phon­ist; arranger; com­pos­er and record­ing artiste al­so launched his first pub­li­ca­tion ti­tled Roy Cape: A Life on The Ca­lyp­so and So­ca Band­stand in 2014. He is al­so a prostate can­cer sur­vivor who was di­ag­nosed in 2013.