The day the music sank
QUESTION Why was the popular Sixties radio station Radio Caroline banned?
Radio Caroline launched on March 28, 1964, broadcasting from a ship anchored 3½ miles off Felixstowe.
it brought commercial pirate radio to Britain, broke the BBC monopoly, provided pop to the nation’s teenagers and helped kick- start the Swinging Sixties. Similar stations followed, and by 1966 there were 11.
The Government claimed these stations interfered with emergency radio communications, which was never proven.
on august 14, 1967, the Marine, &c, Broadcasting (offences) act made it illegal for UK citizens or businesses to supply, advertise on or work for an offshore radio station.
By midnight, all the offshore stations had shut down, except for Caroline, which pledged to continue by sourcing employees, supplies and advertising from outside Britain.
But by March 1968, funding had run out and Caroline’s two ships — one anchored off the isle of Man, the other off Frinton, Essex — were towed to amsterdam and held by creditors in lieu of monies owed.
Radio Caroline returned in december 1972, broadcasting from one of the original ships, and continued until March 1980 when the ship sank.
in 1983, Radio Caroline was back from a new ship, MV Ross Revenge, serving 12 million listeners across Europe.
The Broadcasting act 1990 made it impossible for it to continue from the sea. in 1991, the ship broke anchor in a storm and grounded on the Goodwin Sands.
it was saved and is anchored in the River Blackwater in Essex, maintained by volunteers. The station continues on 648 Khz aM, online and on daB+.
Steve Anthony, Radio Caroline, Strood, Kent.
QUESTION Why is there a difference between a nautical and a land mile?
ThE land or statute mile originates in the Roman mille passus — 1,000 paces. a pace was two steps, and 1,000 paces became standardised in imperial units as 1,760 yards or a mile.
The nautical mile has a different origin. Navigators divide the Earth into degrees of latitude and longitude from the centre of the globe.
ocean navigation was based on the measurement of the angles of the Sun, Moon and stars from the horizon.
The nautical mile was logically defined by an angle: it is the length of the arc on the Earth’s surface subtended by an angle of one minute at the Earth’s centre.
The Earth is not perfectly spherical, so this arc varies in length, being longer at the Equator and shorter at the poles.
For ready reckoning, an average 6,076 ft or 1,852m is used, and this leads into yet another measure, knots, for speed at sea. one knot is equivalent to one nautical mile per hour, but the word is not a shortening of nautical miles per hour.
it is a reminder of the days of sail when a wooden log attached to a knotted rope was dropped into the water to measure speed. as the ship sailed past this stationary log, the evenly spaced knots were counted against a known time measured with a sand glass. Thus knots are a count: there is no such measure as knots per hour.
The really peculiar measurement is the kilometre. Napoleon’s scientists also wished to use the Earth as a standard for their new metre, but failed to appreciate the geometrical beauty of the nautical mile. They defined their metre as being one ten-millionth of the distance between the North Pole and the Equator, but did not have the means to measure this with any accuracy. The metre and kilometre are based on an arbitrary inaccuracy.
Roderick Stewart, HMS Unicorn, Dundee.
QUESTION Was the Monster Of The Andes set free?
YES, serial killer Pedro alonzo Lopez, known as the Monster of the andes, was released in 1998 and, chillingly, his whereabouts are unknown.
Lopez was born on october 8, 1948, in Tolima, Colombia, in a time of turmoil known as La Violencia. The seventh child of 13 born to Belinda Lopez, a prostitute, he was sexualised from an early age. When he was eight, his mother caught him sexually assaulting his younger sister and threw him out of the house.
he made his way to Bogota, the capital, where he was raped by a man who had offered to take him in. By the time Lopez turned 18, he was supporting himself by stealing cars. he was caught and sent to prison, where he was raped by four inmates. he later killed three of them and was sent to an asylum.
in the Seventies, he roamed across Colombia, Ecuador and Peru in search of young girls whom he would rape and kill. in 1980, after a river overflowed its banks near the mountain town of ambato in central Ecuador, four of Lopez’s victims were found floating.
Lopez confessed to an undercover detective and led police to the graves of 59 victims. he admitted to 110 murders and it’s been speculated he may have committed as many as 350.
he was given a life sentence, but in Ecuador this is a maximum sentence of just 16 years.
in 1992, U.S. journalist Ron Laytner interviewed him in prison. The killer was unrepentant, boasting: ‘i am the man of the century. No one will ever forget me.’
he chose victims with ‘a look of innocence and beauty’ and compared himself to a matador for whom ‘the moment of death is enthralling and exciting’.
Lopez was released from prison on august 31, 1994, and then rearrested as an illegal immigrant. he was handed over to the Colombian authorities, who charged him with a 20-year-old murder.
declared insane, he was held in the psychiatric wing of a Bogota hospital. in 1998, he was released on $50 bail and absconded. one of history’s most dangerous serial murderers may still be alive and committing crimes.
Jim Webber, Slough, Berks. IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Daily Mail, 2 Derry Street, London, W8 5TT. You can also email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published, but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.