During the early hours of Sunday morning 8th March 2015, Right Worshipful Brother Peter Simmons, a well-loved Brother in the Province passed peacefully to the Grand Lodge Above. He will be sadly missed and our thoughts are with his wife Rosa and family.
EUOLOGY – By R.W.Bro Neville Jarrett
I first came across Peter Simmons when I applied to join the then resurrected san Juan de España Lodge. He took my Grand Lodge certificate and put it in a file after putting holes I it. We had a few comments and laughs over it.
Now Peter was a very private man, in spite of the his ever open smile and series of jokey comments. It was only bit by bit that I gleaned things about him. We were born only 3 months apart in 1938. When Peter left school he went into a butchers shop to work and it was here that he first had a taste of a hedonistic lifestyle. He was then called up into the army. Then I have a huge gap when he married Joan had children and set about making money when he had a garage selling and repairing cars and selling Petrol
This is when caravanning came into his life.
He then began buying property in Spain and elsewhere.
When I first met him he was already well established in Freemasonry he was in all the Orders and was eventually Deputy Provincial grand master and later I became assistant provincial grand master. We worked closely together in Chapter Sinceridad. Peter role was to begin spreading Freemasonry in the province and in this he was successful. He had the skill to set it up then left it to others to develop the lodge
In his private life he divorced Joan and eventually met and later married Rosamarie. It is coincidental that we both developed cancer at the same time, Peter´s was in his bladder which was eventually removed then on a caravan journey to England he developed a pain in his back which he put down to prolonged driving in an uncomfortable position.
On his return to Spain a Masonic friend, here today, put him in touch with a cancer specialist who eventually diagnosed a tumour on the spine.
Alas this proved very active and it was not long before he was hospitalised several times when on each occasion he was nursed by Rosa Marie very attentively.
It was barely 3 weeks ago that he was re admitted to hospital with severe pain and I spoke to him on the phone the day after he was admitted and his voice by then was weak and over the next week it got even weaker. In pain he was given relief from it and sadly last Sunday in very early hours of it he went to the Grand Lodge above, greatly respected and very much missed.
Peter, May God bless you
