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Caroline Calling........
with Pat Edison
Around 60 years of age? Then you were in your teens or early 20's in the "Swinging Sixties" – arguably the most exciting decade of the 20th century! Lucky teenagers of the 1960's were at the forefront of fashion & music as never before. In the fashion world new, young bright designers like Mary Quant were doing things Marks and Sparks could never dream of. Music in the early 60's was making a break from what had gone before too. With the first generation rock 'n' rollers either dead, in jail or drafted into the US army a breathing space was given to some home spun talent.
Initially this meant a return to the balladeers before they were in turn swept away by Mersey Beat spearheaded by The Beatles. But where could young people hear this new music being made for them? Initially it got minor coverage on the TV and radio channels provided by the BBC and ITV. There was no commercial radio except for Radio Luxembourg at night if one could listen through the fading and static.
Then one day in 1964 Ronan O'Rahilly's Radio Caroline started transmitting radio programmes of all-day "pop music" to a large and receptive audience from a ship anchored 3 miles of the Essex coast. "Pirate" radio had arrived!
It's hard to imagine the impact of this radio station with today's choice of channels but casting your mind back then it really was revolutionary. A station run by young people for young people without stuffy condescending announcers or breaks for a dance orchestra's idea of the "pops" . Of course the government were not best pleased – the BBC monopoly had been broken and mutterings of legislation were only dampened by the popularity of Caroline and its imitators versus the thinness of Prime Minister Harold Wilson's parliamentary majority.
It was to be three years before the re-elected Labour government brought forward their Marine Offences Act intended to outlaw broadcasting from ships, platforms (and even airplanes!) outside British territorial waters. But how could you ban something outside of your jurisdiction? By making it illegal for British nationals to advertise, supply or broadcast on such a station of course. As the other off-shore stations switched off on or before August 14th 1967 all eyes were on Caroline, the first and the last – would she capitulate too? In the event she didn't, as Johnnie Walker’s defiant midnight speech well illustrated. But the bravado was somewhat overblown as the reality of the situation was that the station had no proper advertising and money was running short.
With the BBC's arm being twisted to launch Radio One – a watered down clone of the pirate "sound" featuring many of the same DJ's who only a few months ago were bobbing up and down off the UK coast – memories of the offshore stations began to fade as quickly as the "Summer of Love" itself. Caroline continued but the Marine Offences Act also gagged the press from publishing anything that could publicise an offshore station. Surely not the action of a democratically elected British government? And it would only be the first of a number of sinister pieces of legislation aimed at silencing Radio Caroline.
There were many adventures still to come which I may tell of another time, but today the station continues on Sky Channel 0199 and – of increasing importance – the Internet. We may not be in the flush of youth anymore but the spirit is there, as are musical memories from the 1960's through the the better of today's rock orientated acts. If you are still young at heart why not visit our website at www.radiocaroline.co.uk !
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