The grandad called his first daughter Caroline after the crooner’s biggest hit, and lives in a house called Diamondville.Superfan Ambrose, 71, wished his musical hero a happy birthday and said: “I have the biggest fan collection of merchandise in Ireland.Ambrose, a retired warehouse worker at Dublin Port, has been a follower of the Hello Again singer ever since he first heard him on the Johnny Cash Show in 1970.
He’s surrounded by framed portraits of the singer, gig posters, signed CDs, and figurines. Even his dog, Shilo, is named after a 1970 Diamond hit. The shelves are heaving with hundreds of albums, singles, picture discs, cassettes, posters and DVDs. A framed photo of Ambrose with Diamond – who he met in Dublin in 1984 – and two of his band’s drumsticks hangs on the wall. His late wife Ann led him to focus on Diamond.
He met Diamond, who was born in New York on January 24, 1941, in 1989 during six nights at the Point, when the drummer gave him the drumsticks. Ambrose said: “I went every night and went 10 nights when he played the RDS Dublin. He does completely different sets. I couldn’t miss it.” Ann, who Ambrose met when he was 14, died in 2013 from cancer. Just before her diagnosis, Diamond was on The Late Late Show.