RADIO WAVES

After hearing the story of Radio Caroline’s 60-year history from its owner, Peter Moore, Colin Gibbs in Corby, Northants, recalls his 1968 adventure as an obsessed 18-year-old stowaway…

It was my second full-on attempt at reaching Radio Caroline (if you ignore the 23 turneddown job applications and demo tapes I’d sent in).

I was convinced the station had the perfect job for me, even if my parents disagreed.

During my first attempt, I’d been woken up by police while sleeping in my Austin 1800 in a car park near Frinton-on-Sea and told to go home.

The second time I went by train to the Essex coast and spent several days asking boat owners or fishermen around the Clacton area who might take me out to the ship I could see anchored just three miles offshore.

It was a soul-destroying task due to the fact that the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act had made it illegal to contact the pirate station. But finally an off-duty lifeboatman said a fisherman, John, might take me.

I stayed the night in a pub in Harwich and then, in the morning reached John’s small fishing boat by climbing over several garden walls and handed over the then princely sum of £25.

I was told to stay in the hold of the small fishing boat, where I must remain to avoid being seen by coastguards.

As we approached, Caroline’s signal grew so strong on John’s radio, it howled.

When we arrived, we circled round the Mi Amigo, surprised not to have been spotted. Once we went alongside and I boarded, I could hear Johnnie Walker on air, so I waited for my moment to introduce myself. After messages to and from HQ, it was agreed I could stay as long as I earned my keep. I didn’t have a passport so my father had to apply for one on my behalf and get it to me. I was to remain there until the next tender visit from Holland.

At first, my jobs included peeling potatoes, toast making, table laying, repainting the decks and, amazingly, after a while, being on night watch on the bridge – NOT when the ship ended up going aground, I promise!

The tender eventually arrived, complete with my new passport, and I was taken to Holland. However, the crossing was so rough, I JOB HUNT Colin saw only sea through the and Austin 1800, tender’s porthole when below, Colin now trying to sleep on a metal bench (or wedged into position over the toilet bowl). It was a never to be forgotten mal-de-merstricken journey across the North Sea, and then again on the ferry from The Hook back to Harwich. I hitched a lorry ride to London and went to stay with my nan in Putney. When I was at sea, I’d seen a report about George Newnes’ new teenage newspaper, Cue, being set up.

I visited its offices with my story, explaining I had been aboard Radio Caroline. I was offered a desk and a typewriter and told to write it up.

I wrote several articles under the instruction of the editor Eve Pollard, who later went on to edit the Sunday Mirror.

All was fine, until the news one morning that Radio Caroline was no more, having been towed away. My story was “dead in the water”.

It would be 1973 before Radio Caroline would return, but I later named my daughter, Caroline, after my misadventures.

For more on Radio Caroline, check out radiocaroline.co.uk