Pirate Radio

[baza]

1500. today marked the 51st anniversary of the Marine Offences Act which brought to an end an era of free radio. Are you old enough to remember them, which was your favourite DJ or station. Mine was Caroline then London.

[Canary42]

Caroline on 199 (if I remember right). Regular listener on my tranny, living in Norfolk at the time so got good reception.

[Baldric]

1967, remember it well, I was 15/16 at the time, used to listen in most evenings, it was a good time.

[baza]

Caroline was moored off Walton on the naze, had great reception in south Essex.

[sunny-dave]

London - Peel

http://peel.wikia.com/wiki/Radio_London

[237SJ]

I went to visit the Ross Revenge earlier this year. I always loved Radio Caroline and Radio Jackie (which started as a pirate) is my favourite station.

[kvalidir]

My Mum knew a guy called Colin MacBeth Brown who was something to do with Radio Caroline I think it was, one of the free radios anyway. he went on to be head of sound at RADA and was an interesting old fella. Don't know if he's still alive but I remember him from when I was very little.

[fraser]

Can't remember the original pirate radio stations as iam only 53! But I can remember listening to Atlantic 252 that was moored somewhere off the coast in the eighties!!

[gness]

Out of the blue my dad bought me a "tranny" a rare treat...
In my bedroom with it under the pillow so only I could hear Radio Caroline......and the mesh on the front slowly creating a dip from my head.....bliss.... :-)

[baza]

Rattled my brains and some of the stations were...... Radio City, Shivering Sands, Invicta.
DJ's Simon Dee, Tony Windsor, Kenny Everett, Dave Cash and Keith Skues.

[237SJ]

In N Devon, I could just about hear Caroline and that was only at night. I listened to them when they are an album station broadcasting from the Mi Amigo. Happy days

[Buenchico]

I was a fan of Radio Caroline.

Probably like many other teenagers, I wanted:
(a) a girlfriend ; and
(b) a car.

However my reason for wanting those two things was to be able to sit in my car, with my girlfriend, on the cliff top at Walton-on-the-Naze, so that I could flash the car's headlights to indicate how long we'd been continuously snogging as part of Johnnie Walker's 'Kiss in the Car Competition' ;-)

At that time I was too young to have a car ('cos I was born in '53) and going to an all-boys school severely limited my chances of having a girlfriend. However I'm proud to say that I'm now the owner of one of these car stickers
https://c2.staticflickr.com/2/1200/646467568_2a4128afce_z.jpg?zz=1
having purchased it on board the Radio London ship that (legally) operated off the coast of Essex during a summer of the 1990s as a re-enactment of the original pirate radio days. (You needed to be quite brave to visit that vessel, as it involved using a rope ladder to climb up the side of a ship moored in the North Sea in a moderate swell!)

[Gromit]

I slightly missed pirate radio. But as a boy I was an avid listener of Luxembourg, 208 wasn’t it. Not pirate, but carrying on the tradition. Pop radio before the local Indepentent and BBC channels.

[douglas9401]

Radio Scotland playing just for you, so beat the ban and join the clan on station 242. :)

[gness]

Now that is a treasure, Chris!

[237SJ]

I progressed to Luxemboug when I was about 13 after Caroline. The Ross Revenge is a little bit of a rust bucket (sorry, but it is) They are hoping to get a lottery grant so that they can reburbish it but for that to happen, they would have to register as a charity. It was good to good to go there there though and especially when they were broadcasting.

[Buenchico]

For anyone who fancies visiting the Ross Revenge:
http://www.radiocaroline.co.uk/#boat_trips_background_info.html

(NB: As I indicated above, you need to be reasonably fit to visit one of the former pirate radio ships because you've got to climb up the side of it and, possibly even more daunting, back down again!)

[237SJ]

^It's only few steps up and down - not a problem

[baza]

An old boss of mine had his cabin cruiser nicked from a boatyard on Canvey Island it was used as a tender and sunk in Harwich on a return from Caroline.

[Buenchico]

^^^ It might depend upon the weather conditions, 237SJ. When I did it the ferry vessel was having difficulty staying directly alongside the ship, meaning that you had to jump onto the ladder at exactly the right moment.