A 60-YEAR SURVIVOR
Readers have been sharing their pirate radio memories recently, but despite many attempts to shut her down, owner Peter Moore tells how Radio Caroline is still being heard, loud and clear, over the airwaves…
When it started broadcasting from a ship in Easter 1964, Radio Caroline arrived to do something unheard of at the time – to play new popular music day and night.
The BBC rarely used such material. They had a monopoly on radio broadcasting dating back to 1925, which was protected in law and seemingly never to be challenged.
But the Caroline ship was beyond UK territory.
The station had a huge hunger for new music, so almost anyone with talent could be a pop star or have a pop band at the time. Some were one-hit wonders but some are still performing today.
It was the same with the
DJs – dance band singer Tony Blackburn and used car salesman Johnnie Walker became household names, as did Simon Dee, who went on from Caroline to become a chat-show host.
Everyone loved Caroline aside from the Government, who in 1967 passed a law intended to close the station down. The same legislation prevented the media from reporting on Caroline, unless they publicised only disasters and not successes.
The law failed, but made the station much harder to sustain. Determination to keep broadcasting created many disasters for the press to cover – going adrift, going aground, storm damage and medical emergencies, raids, even mutinies when lack of funds made living conditions unbearable.
There was a huge drive to keep putting out music programmes and the crew would patch their ancient leaking ship Mi Amigo with wood and cement.
When Mi Amigo sank in a storm in early 1980, it was broadcasting until the last moment. Then the station found a new ship, Ross Revenge, and started all over.
Revenge survived the 1987 hurricane only to be violently shipwrecked in 1991 but then was towed into harbour in ruined condition.
For those who had followed the 27-year history of the station so far, this seemed like the end while others thought that Caroline had already succumbed.
But a team recovered Revenge and started fixing her while looking for legal ways to start programmes again.
There were few opportunities, until the advent of internet-based radio which had global range, now audible also on smartphones and tablets.
Then the chance came to restart Medium Wave broadcasts with a strong signal covering the South East.
Most commercial stations were leaving MW due to energy costs, but Caroline installed solar panels and quadrupled the power of its 648 frequency. Now it seeks more power still and DAB services are being established in towns around the UK.
The station no longer only plays pop hits from the 1960s. It has grown up and maybe grown old with its listeners who support the station financially while knowing that all Caroline staff are unpaid volunteers.
Ross Revenge is an old lady now, but Caroline has to have a ship. And while the station broadcasts 24/7 from land, presenters return to Ross Revenge on the Blackwater Estuary one weekend each month for an offshore broadcast. During that weekend around 80 listeners visit the ship and the DJs show them around.
A charity has now been formed to find money for shipyard repairs and the total is heading toward £250k, after which outside funding will be sought.
Whether Revenge will ever sail the high seas again remains to be seen, but it should be possible to keep her as Caroline’s spiritual home, as a base for broadcasting and to welcome visiting enthusiasts.
Check out radiocaroline.co.uk for more information.