Fabulously Flamboyant Friday: Pirates!

Ahoy shipmates! Avast behind and shiver me timbers! Please be welcome – ya scurvy, land-lubbery dogs – to tonight’s Fabulously Flamboyant Friday and yet another of our fortnightly mastications upon the marshmallowy pillows of musical magnificence.

Tonight we take a fond look back at the watery shenanigans of the fantabulous 1960s; a time when there were more pirates off the coast of Blighty than there were on the Spanish Main. Disappointingly, tonight’s missive will contain little in the way of rape, pillage and “your turn in the barrel, mate”; because tonight we consider the golden age of pirate radio, when the likes of Radio Caroline and Radio London ruled the airwaves and ruffled the feathers of the British establishment in equal measure. So put aside all thoughts of Master Bates and Seaman Staines and instead, with all due respect and apologies to Greg Lake, “make fast the guns, for tonight we sail, when the high tide floods the bay” – Not Aaaaaaaarf!

Back in the 1920’s, the UK government cast a jaundiced eye upon the emerging radio technology of the day and decided these radio Johnnies had developed a rather splendid, powerful and extremely effective means of mass communication. The British establishment being what it is, i.e. repressive to its core, decided this radio malarkey would need to be firmly under state control. And so, in 1922, the glorious majesty of the British Broadcasting Company (originally a private company and later a public corporation) was unveiled to the world and inflicted upon the multitudinous minions of Blighty.

The BBC was of course widely perceived as the broadcast arm of the British state and from the very outset was funded by a licence fee charged to every home that possessed a propaganda – sorry – radio receiver. Inevitably, although Joe Public was expected to cough up for this wonderful service, Joe Public would have absolutely no say over what they received for their money. It’s the unique way they’re funded, dontcha know…

Anyway, by the 1930s there were more than five million radio sets in Britain, with the vast majority tuned to the magnificent, beneficent and glorious BBC. But even then there existed a significant demand for a less formal, more light hearted and popular style of programming. To exploit this growing demand, the International Broadcasting Company (IBC) was set up. Being chaps of a shrewd and cunning nature, these wily individuals simply hired air time from overseas stations and began transmitting popular programmes aimed directly at the UK. This was of course perfectly legal, but Auntie (and her chums in government) were soon spitting feathers.

Unsurprisingly, the plebs lapped it up and increasingly began to tune in to Radio Lyon, Radio Normandy, Radio Athlone and of course the wonderful Radio Luxembourg (or at least they did when they could stop the ruddy signal fading in and out). The state was not amused by this sudden availability of popular programming and responded by putting pressure on British newspapers to avoid printing any foul foreign broadcast schedules, encouraged royalty organisations to shaft Johnnie Foreigner at every opportunity and whispered dire warnings that any artist or presenter working for a continental station might very well be banned from ever working for the BBC and quite probably sent to bed without supper as well.

One suspects of course that the government of the day were somewhat anxious to suppress any means of mass communication over which they had no effective control: Eine Stimme, Eine Wahrheit, Ein BBC; and besides, it was for their own good. And after all, if those rough-and-ready sorts on the Clapham omnibus could decide freely as to what they wished to listen, they might very well start hearing things that were simply not good for them. So, in 1936, a committee looking at all aspects of radio broadcasting advised the government that “Foreign commercial broadcasting should be discouraged by every available means”.

It didn’t work: by the outbreak of WWII, Radio Luxembourg had snaffled up a substantial percentage of the BBC’s UK listeners and were cheerfully earning serious coin from their advertising revenue. Of course, Adolf and his impeccably tailored chums soon put a stop to all that nonsense. As soon as the bullets started flying, the BBC very quickly had their monopoly back (“for you, continental DJ types, ze vor ist over…” Damn them evil Nazis and their foul socialist shenanigans…).

So, the BBC had a splendid war. However, once it was over, a new and terrible menace was unleashed upon the land: Teenagers! These strange and malignant creatures began to emerge alongside the import of American music. Rock & roll, soul, rhythm & blues, were all imported, then copied and very soon spawned a whole new roster of up and coming young British artists, popular beat combos and other deeply unwholesome musical innovations.

Unsurprisingly, the BBC were not impressed. They had previously decided that cardigan-clad crooners from the 1930s and ’40s were beyond the pale, so lord knows what they made of rock n roll and all this jitterbugging malarkey. So unfortunately, but perhaps unsurprisingly, opportunities for the UK’s hip young things to hear any of this revolutionary music on the BBC were sadly limited.

Happily for our tale, Radio Luxembourg – the first of the cross-border broadcasters to restart operations after the war – was there to fill the cultural void. It once again became immensely popular with the young ‘uns, who would tune in to allow DJ’s such as Jimmy Saville to thrill their sweetly innocent souls with his latest seven incher. And then, enter stage left, no doubt twirling the tip of his waxed moustache, the villain of the piece: one Ronan O’Rahilly – a wide boy, a ducker, a diver (and apparently a bit of a lad), but above all else, a disrupter par excellence (although, to be honest, entirely without a waxed moustache). And once our Ronan was on the case, things in radio-land would never be the same again.

Young Ronan, it would seem, had a teeny bit of a reputation as a tearaway. He was the son of a well known and very wealthy Irish family who, fortunately for our tale, just happened to own a private port at Greenore in County Louth. His tangled tale is an interesting one, and to be quite honest a tale well worth an article of his own. However, for our purposes, the simplified version of his rise to fame is as follows: he rocked up in London in the early 1960s at the tender age of 17. He was soon running a nightclub and very quickly began managing some of the acts who passed through his doors. Deeply frustrated by his inability to persuade record companies to record his artists, he simply set up his own record label and recorded them himself. Unfortunately, this didn’t solve his problems as the radio stations refused to play his label’s recordings. Undaunted, he decided to go one step further, set up his own radio station and play the damn things himself. This kid got things done.

Of course, it was a bit more complex than that. Ronan began to eye up existing offshore radio stations such as Radio Nord and Radio Veronica. Radio regulations in northern Europe were generally just as restrictive as those in the UK. However, safely anchored in international waters, these marine broadcasters off the Dutch, Danish and Swedish coasts could legally ignore local radio regulations and were doing very well indeed, thank you very much. Now that, thought young Ronan, is a very interesting idea: radio broadcasts at sea. And blimey! My parents own a port. How convenient…

The Australian businessman Alan Crawford was also eyeing up the potential of marine broadcasting and would later allege that O’Rahilly befriended him simply to use Crawford’s feasibility studies to further his own cunning plans – a charge that Ronan always firmly denied. Alleged shenanigans or not, an ex-ferry called Fredericia was purchased by Ronan and taken to Mummy and Daddy’s port for conversion. Crawford’s ship, the Mi Amigo, also went to the same port for preparation, where, it has been alleged, Ronan’s team took every opportunity to hamper their rivals and delay their departure for international waters. Whatever the truth, Fredericia, now renamed MV Caroline, sailed into service first.

The plan was for Ronan’s Radio Caroline to anchor in the Irish sea and for Crawford’s Radio Atlanta to anchor the Mi Amigo off the coast of Essex, 3 miles out from Frinton-on-Sea. In a move that Crawford would later describe as the ultimate treachery, Ronan decided he quite fancied the London market and sent Radio Caroline south to a location off the coast of Essex. On 28th March 1964, Chris Moore and Simon Dee announced “This is Radio Caroline…” and played The Rolling Stones track, Not Fade Away. The BBC monopoly was over and UK radio was changed forever.

Crawford eventually put his Radio Atlanta on air right next to Caroline’s wavelength, but Caroline had the drop on him and had quickly built an audience. Eventually a merger was announced: Crawford’s Mi Amigo stayed off Essex and became Radio Caroline South and the MV Caroline travelled to her original destination in the Irish Sea and became Radio Caroline North. O’Rahilly now had almost all of the UK plus Southern Ireland and substantial parts of the continent in range of his soggy seabourn transmitters. This kid got things done.

Inevitably, the huge success of Radio Caroline ensured others would seek a slice of the pirate pie – and it didn’t take long. In December 1964 the American backed Radio London arrived on the scene in a whopping great ex-WWII minesweeper called the MV Galaxy. Radio London (nicknamed “The Big L”) was a highly professional outfit that delivered slick, American-style programming that was soon capturing a goodly chunk of Radio Caroline’s audience.

Ronan’s Caroline was the instigator, but I’ve always had a soft spot for Radio London. It was the station that really opened up the UK’s airwaves to artists that were simply not being played elsewhere. The famous late-night show responsible for this was called The Perfumed Garden, which was of course hosted by the legendary John Peel. Tony Blackburn (also of Radio London) would later comment that “everybody remembers Caroline as the famous one, but Big L was modern radio as we know it”.

Radio London had two advantages over its rival Caroline: the slickest American-style programmes the UK had ever heard; and a fabulous roster of talent, including Kenny Everett, Dave Cash, Tony Blackburn, Ed “Stewpot” Stewart, Tommy Vance and John Peel.

However, it wasn’t long before Big L had whipper-snappers nipping at its heels: Britain Radio and Swinging Radio England went on air from a single ship, Radio 270 started off the Yorkshire coast, and Radio Scotland dropped anchor off the east coast of Scotchland. And it wasn’t all messing around in boats. Various marine structures, wartime sea forts and suchlike, all long abandoned by the military, soon fell under the thoughtful gaze of wannabe broadcasters. Radio City, Radio 390, Radio Essex, Radio King and Radio Sutch (controlled by David “Screaming Lord” Sutch of Monster Raving Looney Party fame) all went down this route.

Of course it wasn’t all plain sailing for the pirates. Both Caroline and London occasionally had to cease broadcasting as tide and tempest dragged them into territorial waters – and Caroline’s Mi Amigo (which apparently leaked like Bonnie Blue) famously ran aground in the winter of 1966, with the crew eventually having to abandon ship. On the upside, the storms and gales did of course allow Kenny Everett to make unseemly jokes about ferocious tossing.

From the day that Caroline started broadcasting, the UK government began to make grumbling noises. They really didn’t like it, but no serious action was taken. However, by the mid-60s, a third of the UK’s radio audience was tuning in and listening to stuff over which the state had no control. Tony Benn, the Government’s Postmaster General, called them a hazard to shipping, condemned them for stealing frequencies and promised legislation. However, the pirates were hugely popular with voters and legislation could easily become a massive vote loser, so a convenient excuse for action was needed.

As is so often the case, when the state needs something convenient to turn up, something convenient conveniently turns up. As the Radio London DJ Dave Cash ruefully recalled years later, “they couldn’t act against us, so they needed something heavy like drugs or murder – we gave them murder”.

Two station operators, Reg Calvert and Oliver Smedley, were having a proper turf war, which eventually turned very nasty indeed. Smedley introduced Calvert to his shotgun, gave him a practical demonstration of its fearsome capabilities and Calvert decided that, under the circumstances, he should probably have a little lie down. Unfortunately, he never got up again and the jolly image of offshore stations as cheerfully freewheeling broadcasting buccaneers was shattered for ever. Now that the government could portray the pirates as murderous gangsters, they were quickly silenced by the introduction of The Marine etc. Broadcasting Offences Act (1966), which deprived the stations of staff, supplies and revenue. The party was over.

Johnnie Walker was not the only one at the time who had misgivings and concerns about the Calvert / Smedley incident. “It was very suspicious, that whole thing,” he would later say. “The Bill was announced almost immediately”. Calvert’s widow ducked out of view and was given police protection, Smedley was acquitted at trial (and awarded costs) and the Marine Broadcasting Offences Bill received Royal Assent on July 14, 1967.

Under the provisions of the new Act it became illegal for a British subject to operate, supply, publicise or otherwise assist a pirate radio station. Inevitably, most of the stations prepared to close, but not Caroline. As the clock ticked them into new levels of illegality, Johnnie Walker defiantly cued up “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles and told his millions of listeners: “We belong to you, we love you. Caroline continues.” Walker and his colleagues knew they faced arrest if they set foot in Britain, so most of the team based themselves in Holland. Sadly, however, the sponsors and advertisers began to pull the rug out from under Radio Caroline. A few months later, and with great reluctance, they were forced to call it a day and ruefully took the station off the air.

Ronan O’Rahilly remained surprisingly upbeat about the situation. At the time, he confidently predicted Radio Caroline would return to the airwaves within just a few months. The plan seemed to be something along the lines of a non-UK ship, with non-UK crew, technicians and presenters, funded by sponsors who weren’t overly concerned by UK government pressure, broadcasting the kind of slick US-style content that Radio London had pioneered. However, in reality, the sea bourne stations never returned and the UK’s golden age of pirate radio was over.

The final nail in the coffin for our pirate chums, the move that fully ensured Davy Jones’ locker was to be their final resting place, was of course the BBC’s launch of Radio 1 on Saturday the 30th of September, 1967. Tony Blackburn, Keith Skues, Dave Cash, Kenny Everett, Ed Stewart, Dave Lee Travis, John Peel, Tommy Vance and a number of others would all eventually end up at the BBC. Johnnie Walker, having flouted the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act for about seven months, was persona non grata for quite a while, with a BBC memo allegedly stating that on no account should he be employed until the stain of illegality had faded. However, he did eventually end up at the BBC along with the rest of his pirate colleagues.

Radio 1 was a direct response to the massive popularity of the pirate stations and was modelled heavily on the influential Radio London. Famously, the first DJ to broadcast on the new station was none other than Tony Blackburn (a veteran of both Radio Caroline and Radio London) and the first record he played was Flowers in the Rain by The Move. That wasn’t actually the first music played on the new station, as both Beefeaters by Johnny Dankworth and Theme One by George Martin were broadcast before Tony took to the air at 7 am to officially launch the new station.

To further underline the influence of Radio London, all the Radio 1 jingles, idents, shoutouts and stabs, were recorded in the US to American radio standards. However, some claimed this was simply an excuse to avoid paying excessive fees to UK musicians who, at the time, would have expected repeat fees every time a jingle on which they performed was used.

History tells us that Radio 1 went on to be a huge success (only its sister station, Radio 2, was more popular) and their success ensured the pirates never returned to the waters around Blighty. Nevertheless, our swashbuckling chums had been both successful and influential, and, to all intents and purposes, when they took to the waves and airwaves in 1964, they changed radio history and invented the UK pop radio format that flourishes to this day.

Anyway, I think that’s quite enough of my inane radio ramblings for one evening. So I shall bid you all TTFN, dear Puffins. May your pillows be tasty, your gardens inclined and your puddles well jumped.