The Boat That Rocked The Boat That Rocked The film The Boat That Rocked (2009) – aka Pirate Radio in the States and Canada – has certainly caused more than a ripple in the world of Radio Caroline. Set in the 1960's it tells the fictional story of Radio Rock, based very much on the UK's offshore radio era between 1964-1968. However it is not historically accurate, nor pretends to be, causing much annoyance among some offshore radio die-hards who were hoping for a film that better reflected what actually happened in the few short years in the mid 1960's when the BBC's cosy monopoly was blown away by a bunch of ad-hoc radio stations operating from ships and forts outside UK territorial waters. If you've seen the film then you've already made up your own mind, if not then it's the DVD you'll be needing!

See Review by Kees Slings below Bill Nighy (right) recounts another salty tale When Tony Paul Met Bill Nighy Radio Caroline’s Breakfast jock Tony Paul caught up with actor Bill Nighy in Hollywood in the weeks leading up the film's release and persuaded him to give Caroline listeners the inside scoop on The Boat That Rocked. Bill, who plays the owner of a pirate radio station (Ronan O’Rahilly, anyone?), spoke exclusively to Tony about making the film and about his fond memories growing up in the south of England listening to Radio Caroline. Nighy, the star of Love, Actually, The Pirates of the Caribbean, and The Girl in the Café, is an avid rock fan and talked with Tony about his favorite bands and the indulgence rock and roll has had on his life. The Boat That Rocked is written and directed by Richard Curtis (Four Weddings and A Funeral, Notting Hill, Love Actually) and also stars Rhys Ifans, Kenneth Branagh, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Jack Davenport, Nick Frost, and Emma Thompson. It is inspired by the Radio Caroline story and parts of the studio on our radio-ship Ross Revenge were used to re-create the pirate ship.

Ex-Caroline man Johnnie Walker acted as adviser during filming. ROCKING ON THE NORTH SEA a Review by Kees Slings 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE Monday August 14, 1967 was a memorable day in the history of pop music. My brother had invited me to his room in the attic - a rare occasion. Something pretty scary must be about to happen. We sat in horror, looking at his transistor radio, waiting for the end. It came at three o'clock in the afternoon. After the last song, A Day in the Life from the Beatles album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a man's voice said: "Big L time is three o'clock and Radio London is now closing down..." His tone of voice was serious, joyless even, as if the man had been dealt a personal insult. After that came silence. Apart from a soft hiss no more sound came from my brother's portable radio. Switching the frequency to Radio Veronica or Radio Luxembourg felt like treason at that time of mourning.

He blew his mind out in a car He didn't notice that the lights had changed A crowd of people stood and stared They'd seen his face before Nobody was really sure if he was from the house of lords The tone of the voice was joyless for a very good reason. The pop aficionado's and technicians of all British pirate stations, transmitting from old ships in the North Sea and Irish Sea and from wartime artillery sea forts, standing on steel piles in the mouth of the Thames, had finally been beaten by pen-pushers from Whitehall and schoolmasters of the BBC, all docile slaves of the establishment led by labour PM Harold Wilson. The fight for free radio, which had in fact lasted for decades, was lost forever. To keep radio broadcasting in the firm grip of the state and deploy it for the education and betterment of the people, the British Broadcasting Company was established in 1927. Well before the Second World War radio makers revolted. United in the International Broadcasting Company (IBC) they bought airtime from foreign stations and bombarded Great Britain with popular music. Radio Luxembourg is the most famous of these channels.

In 1938, despite years of opposition from London ("Foreign commercial broadcasting should be discouraged by every available means") 45% of the population listened to Radio Luxembourg and only 35% to the BBC. When radio came back to life after the war a status quo ensued that continued well into the sixties, with the BBC as a source of news and civilized entertainment, and Radio Luxembourg bricked up tightly with nice music from commercial record labels Decca, Capitol, EMI and Parlophone. Once a week BBC broadcast a bloodless popular music show, presented by some sort of schoolmaster. For the ladies there were shows like 'Woman's Hour' and 'Listen With Mother.' When American rock 'n roll erupted out of nothing British state radio turned a blind eye and looked the other way. The young Irish aristocrat Ronan O'Rahilly was the first to challenge them.

He came to London and after doing some management for young pop groups such as The Rolling Stones and Eric Burdon and the Animals, and singers Alexis Korner (founding father of the British blues scene) and Georgie Fame, he established an illegal radio station to circumvent the monopolies of the BBC and Radio Luxembourg, and called it Radio Caroline after JFK's playful daughter. Like its predecessor Radio Veronica in the Netherlands it was an instant success. Pop music flowered in it's wake. A new era had come alive. Soon after the first words were spoken on air by O'Rahilly's nervous disc jockeys Chris Moore and Simon Dee ("This is Radio Caroline on 199, your all day music station") followed by the Stones' single Not Fade Away, others followed the Irishman into international waters and in early 1965 an estimated 20 million listeners in the United Kingdom and half of that in Northwest European regions like the Netherlands, Belgium and the north of France could choose from a good number of hip and fashionable pirate stations, of which Radio Caroline (North and South) and Radio London were the most popular. Radio London's Fabulous 40 and Radio Caroline's Top 50 were the charts with authority.

In the fight against these despicable pirates and to subdue the wave of moral ruin of British youth that this so called music threatened to bring about, the Government had to tread cautiously. Twenty million is a lot of voters, even after deduction of the minors. Much more than on the continent, in Britain the exciting songs of the Stones, Beatles, Kinks, Beach Boys, The Who and The Hollies and such and American rock 'n roll appealed to people of all ages. A strange paradox, given that the phenomena of youth cult and the generational divide coming from across the Atlantic ocean, had set foot on shore in the land of the pirate stations. Legislation against that which provided one third of the population with the greatest fun in years was a delicate matter. Whitehall occasionally mumbled something about 'frequency theft' and 'overseas frequency interference' but did nothing. Something extraordinary was needed, like a smoking gun. It soon fell into its lap. One of the Thames sea forts that stand in international waters eleven miles from the Kent coastline, was manned by the flamboyant singer Screaming Lord Sutch and his manager, the temperamental Reginald Calvert.

After a business disagreement with one Major Oliver Smedley, manager of pop group The Fortunes and co-founder of Radio Atlanta, Calvert decided to pay Smedley a visit in order to speak his mind. During the ensuing fight Reggie tried to attack the Major with a stone ornament from the garden. The Major took his service rifle and shot the noisy intruder dead. Now the tide turned for the BBC and the government. After an election victory labour had secured power for several years and no longer needed to fear popular opinion. Soon a bill was proposed against the pirates - who after the debacle with Calvert and confronted with a changed image had restyled themselves 'Free Radio'. The Marine Broadcasting Offenses Act forbade everyone to do business with offshore-based stations, which, as spokesmen claimed, were mostly peopled by criminals anyway. Working for, delivering goods to, or advertising on the pirates was to become a criminal offense in the future. During the summer of 1967 there was nationwide protest against the new law. New music channels were no longer springing to life on the air like they had in previous years. The music continued but there was a lame and nervous mood in the ether.

When the bill was approved and implemented at midnight on August 14, pirates switched off their transmitters one after the other, during the course of the day. The immensely popular DJ's were ferried back to the coast and took the train to the capital. At Liverpool Street Station a crowd had gathered to extend their heroes Kenny Everett, Dave Cash, John Peel, Tony Blackburn and many others a warm welcome. The story goes that some girls on the street cried and waved at them with their knickers. But soon the atmosphere became unpleasant and the people directed their anger and outrage over the disappearance of all their pop stations on the bobbies. All? No. One station stubbornly continued to broadcast the wonderful songs which the population had become so addicted to. Radio Caroline, which in 1964 had started the boom in pirate stations, stayed in the air from the two original locations in the Irish and North Seas, and punctuated their broadcast by pirate language and sneers at the labour Party.

With an upturned nose at the Marine Broadcasting Offenses Act, a Dutch crew under one Captain De Vries and tendered from the Netherlands by a company called Redwing, a subsidiary of Wijsmuller Tugboats from the Dutch fishing town of IJmuiden, the Fredericia, renamed MV Caroline, and the Mi Amigo sat on their anchor chain off the Isle of Man and off Harwich. That memorable day Radio Caroline North and South entered its heyday. In the course of Monday the fourteenth as one by one the pirates had vanished from the air, a steadily growing number of Britons tuned in to Radio Caroline. Around midnight twenty million were listening, their ears glued to the speaker of their wireless and their hearts filled with loathing of the establishment and love for the pirates that had remained aboard the Mi Amigo, O'Rahilly, Johnnie Walker, Robbie Dale, Carl Mitchell, Spangles Muldoon and newsreader Ross Brown. DJ Johnnie Walker made an emotional speech in which he declared that Radio Caroline belonged to the people and would never stop doing what it floated on the waves for: broadcasting heavenly pop and dirty ass rock 'n roll. All day and all of the night...

2: DOING IT ON THE NORTH SEA This is the story that a film about the era of pirate pop should tell. Such a film has now been released. It's called The Boat That Rocked. It is produced by Working Title and directed by Richard Curtis, the creator of Notting Hill and Love Actually. But with a spineless and fun and sex oriented script The Boat That Rocked misses the chance of real drama by several nautical miles. That Radio Rock, the pop station transmitting from a vessel in the North Sea which is the main location of the movie, is pretty much designed after Radio Caroline becomes apparent by several aspects. Such as the gentle nature of owner Bill Nighy, an eloquent but stubborn aristocrat à la Ronan O'Rahilly, by the presence of sexy killer DJ Rhys Ifans, with one hand on the microphone and the other on his fly, by the fact that it ignores a law issued against it and by the fact that the ship finally sinks (see below). Oh, and Rock Radio broadcasts on 309 meters (Caroline on 319). A clever trick of the scriptwriters puts a teenager, nephew of the owner, on board that has never done 'it' yet.

He is immediately taken in by the group of experienced and sometimes cynical individuals responsible for all the dancing in British streets that occurs in the beginning. His mother – a wonderful little role by Emma Thompson - has asked the owner to keep her young son on board for a while to give him something of a decent upbringing. "A spectacular mistake ..." Nighy adds drily as only he can. Wise words that in fact apply to the whole script. Who performs 'it' where, when, how often and how long, in the past, present and future isn't only the core of the education the boy receives from his new friends, but is also the main thing nearly all the other characters seem to be interested in, apart from getting up at all hours for a broadcast and challenging each other to perform jackass acts like climbing the antenna to pass the time. Meanwhile, in scenes that are almost as burlesque as those on board, Minister Kenneth Branagh and his shrewd assistant Jack Davenport discuss how to bring the 'pornographic broadcasts' of Radio Rock to a halt.

In short sequences full of lame statements such as 'the fun of governing is that you can invent laws against things that you don't like so that all of a sudden they're a crime,' lend a half-baked suspense to the fun on board the ship. In the meantime sloops filled with willing ladies are ferried over to please the popular as popstars jocks. Young nephew Tom Sturridge falls in love with the very pretty and very elegant Talulah Riley and is about to become a man at last, when incomprehensible and unnecessary zwifflezwaffle in dark cabins ends his hopes and ours. The account that singer Sylvan Whittingham gives of her rare September 1965 visit to the Mi Amigo to promote her single We Don't Belong tells a slightly different story. "Unlike the portrayal in the film The Boat That Rocked, there was absolutely no hanky panky taking place apart from some light flirting from disc jockey Roger Gale (now an eminent MP). It was a very unromantic environment.

Cold, uncomfortable, slightly greasy and smelly." Her single was promptly banned by the BBC because of the 'high content of Romeo and Juliet.' This hypocritical attitude of the state radio is made fun of in scenes about who will use the f-word in broadcasts for the first time in history. An anecdote about Caroline's Captain De Vries also tells a very different story than the loose and sexy stuff on Radio Rock: 'There is a story I have heard that De Vries used to behave like a dictator. He allotted you your cabin. When Simon Dee came aboard and said 'I'm Simon Dee, the disc jockey,' the captain replied with a cool 'Oh yeah? Well, your hut is in the bow, next to the anchor chain...' It must have been terrible, but after no less than four months Simon was finally given a decent cabin.' On Monday August 14, 1967 at three o'clock in the afternoon, after the last words transmitted by Radio London, Radio Caroline kept silent for a minute out of respect for its main competitor. In the movie this episode translates as follows. It is indeed the dramatic climax and nearly the only scene that really works well dramatically.

Head DJ The Count (the only American of the group, played by Philip Seymour Hoffman) tells his listeners about the new Act that outlaws them. He announces the immediate end of Radio Rock. After his words the ether is dreadfully quiet, apart from a hiss etc. Melodrama builds up as befits a burlesque. The release comes when after a minute The Count breaks the silence with a dry "I'm just kidding... Radio Rock will never stop..!" and proceeds with The Kinks' wonderful "All Day and All of the Night". A few months later there is a loud bang and the ship begins to sink. While the North Sea enters the cabins there is the inevitable fun of trying to rescue one another without ending the endless gaffing and joking. Great fun: hippie DJ pulls himself loose from his rescuers and dives back into the depths in order to save his favorite album. Afterwards, a colleague draws him out of the water, takes the record from his hands, glances at the colorful sleeve and throws it back in the water with a contemptible 'what a shit record'.

It is with considerable pride that I can announce that even under water I immediately recognized the album as the firstling of the Scottish folk group The Incredible String Band, called as hippies will 'The 5000 Spirits or the Layers of the Onion.' In this The Boat That Rocked is indeed realistic, because the somewhat homemade marmalade folk music these boys and girls from a commune near Edinburgh made caused either complete adoration or a fathomless hatred in all who heard them perform. There is nothing in between, as these scenes convey in a funny way. I adored Mike and Robin and the girls, although I have noticed many times that my friends began biting their nails and looking sideways when I played my Incredible String Band records for them. This funny, romantic and ethereal music can still touch me deeply, but I've learned to avoid it when there is company. Nobody understands me, you know. The banal nature of the film is properly reflected in the last scenes. Just as had happened during the war after the Battle of Dunkirk on May 26 1940, everything that floats defies the waves for a second time to get the boys safely home.

All jocks and crew are rescued and are sitting wet but happy on board of some of the hundreds of vessels great and small that are gathered around the wreck. Only The Count is still aboard. He has announced that he wishes to go down with Radio Rock. Everyone holds their breath and even the seagulls are silent. All but the large antenna has disappeared and the ship must be near the bottom of the sea by now, but still no sight of him. Suddenly the thick yank pops up in the foaming water, lifts his arms in the air triumphantly and roars: "ROCK 'N ROLL ..!" Whereupon the frolicking and 'doing it' really starts off, even for the nephew of the owner. The soundtrack full of great sixties pop songs makes up quite a bit for this silly and disappointing burlesque about sex and drugs and rock 'n roll in the ether, but still I think 'Doing It On The North Sea' would have been a much better title than The Boat That Rocked. It has little to do with reality. The same goes for the movie's liberal drinking. "We used to get twelve beers and twenty-four soft drinks a week" says a former Mi Amigo DJ.

3: THE DUTCH YEARS The Mi Amigo did indeed sink spontaneously, but thirteen years later than the film would have us believe. In the meantime there was the Dutch period. Because Redwing's towering bills remained unpaid, two Wijsmuller tugboats left IJmuiden and took to the sea in March 1968. In the Irish Sea and off Harwich they cut Caroline's anchor chains and towed the two ships to Amsterdam, where they were chained to be sold at a later date. The Fredericia/ MV Caroline was scrapped after a few years. The Mi Amigo, turned into a museum that didn't look very seaworthy by Dutch volunteers, was hijacked from Zaandam in 1972 and hurried through the locks at IJmuiden before the Dutchies knew what was happening. The ship underwent technical repairs on the high seas off the coast of Scheveningen and happily started broadcasting again.

But the atmosphere in Holland wasn't what the pirates were used to, as evidenced by the somewhat melancholy words of a former technician: "There were no hoards of weeping girls waving their knickers at us." Bul Verweij and Norbert Jurgens, the two Dutch gentlemen that owned the hugely popular Radio Veronica, weren't happy either with the arrival of yet another pirate near their anchorage. They were already involved in a struggle with the owners of Radio North Sea International, transmitting from the Mebo 2, that was anchored near their own ship the Norderney since a few years. This quarrel could easily compete with the one between Reggie Calvert and Major Smedley. A couple of guys paid by Verweij and Jurgens had smuggled a bomb aboard the Mebo 2 where it exploded in the evening and set the engine room on fire. But this act of real piracy had failed dramatically. Not only was the fire put out easily and the damage repaired on the spot, worse was the damage that Radio Veronica's reputation as a decent radio station suffered. As had happened in Britain, the government in The Hague began thinking about ways to put an end to the piracy of their ether by a bunch of clearly amoral businessmen.

And now a third vessel had joined Norderney and Mebo 2. Fortunately a new Battle of Hellevoetsluis was avoided when during a storm the Norderney broke anchor and ran on the beach. Verweij and Jurgens temporarily rented the Mi Amigo in order to continue broadcasting Radio Veronica. This gave O'Rahilly the idea to lease his ship to other Dutch broadcasters. For some time the Dutch Radio Mi Amigo transmitted from the ship, with mainly Dutch pop groups and folky tunes. In the evening and night it broadcast shows aimed at England under the name Radio Caroline. When the Dutch government declared pirate stations illegal from August 30, 1974, enraging millions of Dutch pop fans, O'Rahilly asked for a tug to take his ship back home to the British coast. Invisible from the beach in Kent and Essex and close to the old sea forts in the Thames estuary, Caroline in collaboration with Radio Mi Amigo was the last English pirate broadcasting in Europe. The ship continued to do so with many interruptions until March 1980. Then the ancient iron hull could no longer sustain its weight above water. Crew, technicians and jocks hurried into life boats.

From the official Caroline website, where much of the info for this story comes from: "'For the moment from all of us, goodbye and God Bless...' These were the last words spoken on air from the Mi Amigo's transmitters. A few minutes after the crew were rescued by the life boat Helen Turnbull, the ships lights went out as sea water engulfed the generator and Mi Amigo sank." No weeping, no shouting from the waves nor the waving of underwear from the shore could save her. Brave Mi Amigo, built in Norway in 1921, had finally stopped rocking. Translated from by Kees Slings More film reviews in English in the near future so please check regularly The Boat That Rocked The swashbuckling rock rebels of Radio Caroline | The Independent Features The swashbuckling rock rebels of Radio Caroline In the Sixties, only one station truly tuned into the spirit of the age. Radio Caroline sparked a pop revolution &ndash; and now it's inspired a movie.

John Walsh sails back in time Wednesday 18 March 2009 00:00 BST Click to follow The swashbuckling rock rebels of Radio Caroline 1/2 2/2 Getty Sometimes," remembers Dave Lee Travis, "when the weather was really rough, we had to attach an old two-shilling piece on to the arm of the record player to keep the needle weighted down on the record against all the pitching and tossing. And when it got really bad out there, we'd call it a Half-Crown Day." With its quaint references to pre-decimal currency and ancient audio systems, this sentence must sound like a foreign language to anyone born after the Sixties. But it summons up rich feelings of nostalgia for early rock 'n' rollers. The needle that Travis remembers so fondly landed in the grooves of a million records spinning on turntables in the production suite of a ship anchored in the North Sea, broadcasting the heady excitement of early Beatles and Rolling Stones, The Who and The Kinks, Motown and Stax, to a British audience mostly starved of rock rhythms, crashing drums and invitations to Spend the Night Together.

It was the heyday of offshore pirate radio, a short-lived but vividly recalled phenomenon of the mid-Sixties, when bedtime for children and teenagers meant taking your transistor radio under the covers, tuning to 199 metres, medium wave, and listening through your plastic earpiece as a succession of hyperactive, logorrheic young men introduced records, whooped with glee, sang along, talked like carnival barkers, made suggestive remarks, told childish jokes, did animal impressions, speculated about the behaviour of listeners in their boudoirs, held competitions and never seemed to calm down or sleep. It was our first experience of 24-hour radio, and of the cult of the disc jockey. And it's the subject of the new film by the British director and cash cow of our indigenous movie world, Richard Curtis. In 1964, the mainstream music radio shows heard on the BBC's Light Programme (which became Radio 2) were relatively staid affairs hosted by polite "presenters" rather than DJs – affable, rather suave men such as David Jacobs, Brian Matthew and Pete Murray.

They played all the groovy new pop records – Herman's Hermits, Manfred Mann, Petula Clark, Cliff Richard, Gerry and the Pacemakers and The Beatles – but in a hefty smorgasbord that included helpings of Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Frankie Vaughan, Ray Charles, novelty records and elevator jazz. The DJs had technicians to spin the records for them, as though to soil their hands with technology was beneath their dignity. Between them, they played about three hours of rock 'n' roll a week. Since the mid-Sixties was the heyday, the Golden Age, of British and US rock, this was a scandal. Or as Richard Curtis put it at a preview last week: "This was the worst mismatch of supply and demand in history, with the possible exception of Cheryl Cole and all the people who want to go out with her." British radio piracy didn't happen by accident. It was the work of an extraordinary young Irish entrepreneur called Ronan O'Rahilly. At only 25, O'Rahilly had taken London by storm. He ran a Soho club called Scene.

He was an agent and PR man for pop singers and actors, and numbered among his clients George Lazenby, the wooden male model who played James Bond in On Her Majesty's Secret Service. (O'Rahilly gave Lazenby the worst career advice in history. When the latter was offered a seven-film deal by the Bond producers, the agent advised against it, on the grounds that Bond would be passé by 1970.) Among his musical charges was Georgie Fame, the young keyboard player with the perfect delivery for blues and jazz. Fame was having trouble getting his music played. O'Rahilly formed his own record company to put Fame on disc, and hawked the result around the BBC and Radio Luxembourg (a commercial station broadcasting from the Grand Duchy) without success. With remarkable chutzpah, he decided that, if the available stations wouldn't play his clients' music, he would create his own one – without going to the British government for a licence. Offshore radio – broadcasting across national airwaves legally because the station is located outside national waters – had existed for a few years. Scandinavia had started it in 1958, followed by Radio Veronica in Holland.

But it was hard to set up: you needed, for one thing, a boat. By a happy stroke of synergy, O'Rahilly's businessman father owned the port of Greenore in Northern Ireland, where lay an old, 763-ton, Danish passenger ferry called the MV Frederica. Through his record company, O'Rahilly raised enough money to reinvent the vessel as a radio ship. He renamed it Caroline after Caroline Kennedy, the six-year-old daughter of the late US president, whose sweet image in a magazine had appealed to him. He anchored the MV Caroline in the North Sea, in international waters near Frinton, Essex. He put the word out that he was looking for disc jockeys, recruited at startling speed – and on Easter Sunday, 29 March 1964, random twiddlers of radio dials across the nation could hear the voices of Simon Dee and Chris Moore announce: "This is Radio Caroline on 199, your all-day music station." The first song they played was (ironically) The Rolling Stones's "It's All Over Now".

Meanwhile, a rival had appeared in the form of Australian businessman Alan Crawford, who owned the Mi Amigo, formerly part of the Swedish radio station, Radio Nord. Crawford fitted out the ship and began broadcasting on 12 May as Radio Atlanta. For O'Rahilly, it was like encountering an irritating twin. But he and Crawford made common cause, the two stations merged, the Frederica sailed to anchorage beside the Isle of Man, and became Radio Caroline North; the Mi Amigo stayed offshore from Frinton as Radio Caroline South. The pirates lasted three years, until August 1967, broadcasting 24 hours a day, selling advertising space (which, with the exception of Radio Luxembourg, was something new to British radio) and setting the tone for every chatty, breezily intimate, harmlessly matey DJ who followed. Their ship-bound camaraderie communicated itself to listeners as a spirit of carefree liberty that prefigured the hippy explosion. Caroline's popularity grew until it could claim 25 million listeners – half the population of Great Britain.

It's the sense of complicity between pop DJs and their audience that Richard Curtis has tried to harness in The Boat That Rocked, his second film as writer-director after Love Actually. In the movie, Radio Caroline has become Radio Rock, heading for the last days of its reign before the government deep-sixes it with legislation. The DJs are played by Philip Seymour Hoffman (as The Count, a hip but conceited American based on Emperor Rosko), Rhys Ifans ("the coolest man on earth," dressed in a very gay purple hat), Nick Frost from Shaun of the Dead (as Dave – fat, lecherous and sarcastic), Chris O'Dowd from The IT Crowd (as Simon, an Irish dreamer who falls foul of a scheming woman played by January Jones from Mad Men), and Rhys Darby from Flight of the Conchords (Angus, an Australian buffoon from the genus of Alan "Fluff" Freeman). Bill Nighy, a veteran player in Richard Curtis's screen family, plays the O'Rahilly character, Quentin, complete with velvet jacket and long cigarette-holder. It's an ensemble comedy with a warm heart: funny in places but more dedicated to matey larks and collective enthusiasm than jokes.

There's Carry On slapstick, sex, and a small spliff reference in the trailer that seems to have been dropped from the final cut. But is it a true representation of life at sea in 1966? *** "I don't want to be seen to support this film," says Dave Lee Travis, one of the early arrivals on Radio Caroline (and still broadcasting on Magic Gold). "No, I haven't seen it – but I know one or two things about it that are wrong. People will watch it and say, 'Oh – that's what it was like on board Radio Caroline.' But it wasn't. I don't mean just the physical details. There are bits of naughtiness on the part of the people who made it, but I'm not going further than that." Johnnie Walker, another Radio Caroline star and one of the few who remained after the government outlawed the pirates in 1967, has less of a bone to pick with the film-makers. He was, after all, called in by Curtis as an "adviser", along with Chris Evans and Chris Moyles, who were asked to advise the actors how you conduct an hour-long radio show broadcasting to millions.

What production details about the Caroline and her crew did Curtis want to find out? "Nothing, actually," said Walker. "I think Richard didn't want to do much research at all. He studiously avoided books about pirate radio, including my autobiography. He listened in when he was a boy, he loved the pirates and wanted to create his fictional idea of what it was like." Did Walker like the movie? "I think for younger people, born after the whole pirate thing, it's an introduction to an really exciting, rebellious time in British history. If Curtis had stuck to the real story, it would've been a dull film, because we lived quite boring lives." Walker (born Peter Dingley) started spinning records at the Locarno Ballroom in Birmingham. The day after he lost his day job as a car salesman, someone at a DJ gig asked if he'd heard of a pirate station called Radio England. "I found the whole concept," he says, "glamorous and romantic and exciting." He discovered the station's whereabouts, took them an audition tape and was duly hired. How was his first day on board ship?

"Once I got over the excitement of seeing a proper radio studio for the first time, and an enormous transmitter, Radio England was a bit disappointing. There were no cabins or bunks; no sleeping accommodation had been built for DJs, so we bedded down in sleeping bags in the hold. The American planners had just wanted to get the ship on the air as quickly as possible." That seems, I venture, amazingly short-sighted of the planners. "It was worse than that. There were rumours that the boat had been used to ship back dead GIs from Korea, and that the hold we slept in was where they put the body bags..." Walker soon jumped ship, when he learnt that Radio England was scheduled to change to a Dutch format. "I went up to London, went to Wimbledon Palais where they were having a "Caroline Night Out" and next day I was in Caroline House, my tape was played to Ronan, and word came back to me: "How soon can you make it to the ship?" Like many Sixties scenesters, he took to the entrepreneurial O'Rahilly straight away. "I was captivated by him, He had enormous charm, huge charisma and he made you believe that anything was possible.

He epitomised the spirit of the Sixties." Did he direct his DJs as to the kind of music he wanted? "He believed in freedom," says Walker, like a good Sixties kid. "He used to say, 'Why hire people who know and are enthusiastic about music, then tell them what they should and shouldn't play?'" Dave Lee Travis was raised in Manchester and found his DJ-ing feet in the city's groovy clubs. In 1964 he spent some time touring in America with Herman's Hermits; back in England, he "thought radio might be fun. I'd heard about the pirate ships, so I went down there and managed to talk myself into a job. I'd no idea then how important it was going to be in changing the face of British broadcasting." He found O'Rahilly "a man with a mission, basically. He was determined to make his pirate radio work, he felt very strongly about it. He was a very forward-thinking guy." Travis's first day on board was memorable.

"At dinner, the captain welcomed me, sat me down with rest of crew, and said, 'Just for Dave's benefit, we'll have to go through the lifeboat drill.' They told me if the alarm sounded, we had to go up and stand by the boats and that I was stationed on the top deck. I'd only been asleep for a couple of hours when alarm went off. I got out of bed, was about to put my trousers on when someone grabbed my hand and said, 'No time for that, quick quick!' So I was in my underpants in the North Sea, I went up to my post by a boat on top deck and I stood there almost naked, freezing my arse off, waiting for instructions. After five minutes, I thought, Nobody's given me orders, I can't hear anything, this is crazy – and as I went downstairs, I heard muffled laughter. It was a first-night wind-up. I unloosed a lot of expletives." The real-life Radio Caroline resembled Radio Rock in having two-berth cabins for the DJs, but had no bar or entertainment area. "It had a mess hall, with tables bolted to the floor, nothing too fancy, you understand.

And you couldn't go sunbathing on the top deck because there wasn't much call for that in the North Sea...." And so we reach a crucial question: just how did a dozen or so type-A personality, pop-savvy young men in their early twenties, with millions of adoring fans writing to them, keep themselves entertained? Drink? Drugs? Relentless sexual intercourse? The question exercises Travis a bit. "Naow," he says with a grimace. "That's the whole thing, isn't it? The film's going to be full of that. They'll probably think of every conceivable thing young fellows could get up to. Sadly, it was a bit more boring. We didn't have women on board, or parties. There'd be five or six DJs, plus the Dutch crew. What we were doing was changing the face of pop-music Britain. It was brilliant to be able to choose our own music from the record library.

In my time I've been to so many stations where some young guys, who've been put in to run the station, give you a list of records to play, and don't know what they're doing." *** Naturally, The Boat That Rocked indeed features some of the behavioural extremes that Travis denies. Chief among them is sex. At the start of the film we meet Quentin's godson Carl, an 18-year-old virgin expelled from public school, who is looking for girls. His determination to lose his virginity is a plot strand, as is the sexual prowess of a young sex god called Midnight Mark who recreates the famous album sleeve of Jimi Hendrix's Electric Ladyland with a score of naked girls around him. Later, a party of competition winners comes on board and pairs off with the cooler DJs. "Oh God," breathes Irish DJ Simon, looking over the side, "It's like a boatful of honey." Walker groans. "The idea of a competition with 200 winners coming to the ship, including 100 girls, didn't happen. I wish we'd had half the fun that The Boat That Rocked DJs did." Did women never appear on the boat at all?

"During the summer, couples in sailing boats would come alongside and, if we had a friendly captain, he'd allow them to tie up. We'd get the engineer to take the boyfriend on a tour of the generators, and us DJs would move in on the girlfriend, and give her a tour of the more, er, social areas of the ship." Did the DJs never carouse? "At Christmas we'd crack open a few beers. Towards the end of Caroline, there was some marijuana and we'd smoke a few spliffs. But the wild times were on shore. A week's shore-leave would be non-stop party, and the hardest thing was getting to Liverpool Street station at 8.30am on Monday morning – the greatest sin was to miss the train to Harwich." The end for Caroline came at 3pm on 14 August 1967, when the government, annoyed by the legal loophole that had allowed it to invade the airwaves, implemented the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, making it illegal for persons subject to UK law to work on, supply or advertise on pirate ships.

(In the film, a campaign to outlaw our heroes is conducted by a nasty government minister called Dormandy, played by Kenneth Branagh.) Other stations, such as Radio London, were forced off the air. Most Caroline DJs departed for the mainland. Not, however, Johnnie Walker. Why did he choose to stick around? "I totally believed in what Radio Caroline was doing, and I knew that for millions of people the station was part of their life. I didn't see the fairness of taking it off the air. I knew the BBC would produce a very insipid imitation of pirate radio. So when Ronan said, "I want to keep Radio Caroline going, I said, 'If so, I want to be a part of it.'" Radio Caroline kept broadcasting illegally until March 1968, when the money ran out. "There was a Dutch company which made sure the ships could maintain their anchorages in terms of diesel oil and supply boats. When the bills stopped being paid, they sent tugs, hijacked the ships and tugged them into Amsterdam." It was an ignominious ending to an heroic enterprise, but it had fomented a revolution.

Ronan O'Rahilly's initial desire was to get clients' records played; three years later, the BBC's conservative music policy was dead, and the airwaves were full of pop on Radio 1, featuring a score of former pirate DJs. Years later, when the BBC's monopoly was broken and commercial radio arrived, the situation sounded oddly familiar. It sounded as if the pirates were back.

Caroline's Greatest Hits: Download the memories The Beach Boys Wouldn't It Be Nice The Beatles Strawberry Fields Forever The Rolling Stones (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction Otis Redding My Girl The Jimi Hendrix Experience Purple Haze Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston It Takes Two Tom Jones It's Not Unusual Cliff Richard The Minute You're Gone Herman's Hermits I'm Into Something Good The Byrds Mr Tambourine Man The Supremes You Can't Hurry Love Donovan Mellow Yellow The Yardbirds Shapes of Things The Who My Generation Sandie Shaw (There's) Always Something There to Remind Me The Small Faces All or Nothing Cream I Feel Free The Four Tops I Can't Help Myself (Sugar Pie Honey Bunch) The Seekers I'll Never Find Another You The Righteous Brothers Unchained Melody Bob Dylan Like a Rolling Stone The Kinks You Really Got Me The Troggs With a Girl Like You The Monkees I'm a Believer Watch a trailer for 'The Boat that Rocked' and enter our competition at independent.co.uk/tbtrcomp More about: Radio Caroline Radio Caroline by • Music - 1960s , Music - 1970s • Tags: Radio The first

 British pirate radio station, Radio Caroline, was founded by Ronan O'Rahilly in 1964.

Having persuaded five City millionaires to back him, he acquired a ship, a crew of disc jockeys and engineers, two 10-kilowatt transmitters (£50,000 apiece) and a stack of records. The station started broadcasting on 29 March 1964, when DJ Simon Dee uttered the words, "Hello everybody. This is Radio Caroline, broadcasting on 199, your all-day music station". He was speaking from a small studio onboard the 702 ton former passenger ferry Frederica, known to its listeners as Radio Caroline. As was the case with most European countries, British law only prohibited commercial radio broadcasting on land. By basing itself in the North Sea, Caroline was able to exploit this legal loophole, providing British teenagers with all-day rock & roll fun, while simultaneously providing O' Rahilly with all-day profit from advertisers. The DJ's on Caroline took their shore leave in Holland and Dutch boats carried their supplies and records to the ship. All British offshore pirate radio stations were silenced by the government's Marine Offences Act in Autumn 1967.

The banning coincided with the launch of Radio One by the BBC - which was created as a carbon copy of the pirate stations. Caroline continued to broadcast for six months, but the lack of advertising, failing morale of the DJ's (who were all now exiles from the UK) and the huge distances over which supplies had to be transported, gradually wore the station down. Their continued broadcasting, though, was an embarrassment to the Labour government which had vowed to sink the pirates. Both Caroline ships went silent in early March 1968 and were towed from their anchorages to Holland, where they gradually deteriorated as they were looted and vandalised. The MV Caroline eventually went to the scrapyard, but Mi Amigo was rescued and was ultimately taken back to sea. Radio Caroline was back. For a while the station broadcast Dutch language (and style) radio during the day and English Caroline programmes at night, before the Mi Amigo was towed to a desolate anchorage in the Knock Deep at the mouth of the Thames Estuary visible from neither the Kent or Essex coasts.

At this location - and ostensibly operated and supplied from Playa De Aro in Spain - Radio Caroline and the ship commenced their next six lonely, difficult but remarkable years. Rather than compete with Radio One , Ronan O'Rahilly decreed that Caroline should now play only album music. Listeners were now subjected to a diet of Led Zeppelin , Eric Clapton , Jethro Tull , Yes , Lynyrd Skynyrd , Barclay James Harvest and their ilk. On 19 March 1980 Mi Amigo broke anchor and - lifted by the rising tide - was pounded on the seabed, with many leaks springing up in the engine and generator rooms at the stern. After struggling for eight hours with portable pumps the crew admitted defeat. Tom Anderson and DJ Stevie Gordon told listeners "It's not a very good occasion really, we have to hurry this because the lifeboat is waiting. We're not leaving and disappearing, we're going into the lifeboat hoping that the pumps can take it, if so, we'll be back, if not, well we really don't like to say it. I'm sure we'll be back one way or another. For the moment from all of us, goodbye and God Bless".

These were the last words spoken on air from the Mi Amigo's transmitters. A few minutes after the crew were rescued by the lifeboat Helen Turnbull, the ship's lights went out as seawater engulfed the generator and Mi Amigo sank. Radio Caroline was relaunched in 1983, now broadcasting from an ex-trawler called MV Ross Revenge. The station continued broadcasting until the horrendous storms of 1987 destroyed the 300 foot aerial on the ship. This was replaced by two more modest aerials, but on On Saturday 19 August 1989 the unthinkable happened. The large Dutch vessel Volans (with armed officials on board) and the British launch Landward closed in on the Ross Revenge and boarded and took control of the ship as disc jockeys relayed a blow by blow account of events to the astonished listeners. Once the transmitters were silenced, the Dutch stripped the ship of all broadcast equipment while the British attempted to interrogate the crew under threat of arrest.

All this happened in International waters where the boarders had no official powers, and the raiders eventually left, taking with them all of the records, studios and transmitting equipment and leaving behind some vandalism and deliberate damage. Using land-based studios leased in Kent in the late 1990s, Radio Caroline began broadcasting via satellite. These analogue transmissions ended and a full digital service started in February 2003. The station has been streamed on the internet for many years, accessible via the station's website at RELATED ARTICLES HISTORY The History RADIO CAROLINE was created by Ronan O'Rahilly and outfitted on a 702 ton ferry, the M.V. Frederica...... and renamed the M.V. Caroline. She began regular broadcasting on Easter Sunday 1964 from an anchorage off the southeast coastline of England Another radio ship, the Mi Amigo joined her shortly thereafter. It was taken over in July and the radio station was renamed Radio Caroline South. The M.V. CAROLINE sailed to The Irish Sea and anchored 3.5 miles off the coast of Ramsey, Isle Of Man and became RADIO CAROLINE NORTH.

By no means is this a complete history of Radio Caroline North the grand lady of broadcasting. It is only a capsule of events affecting the life of The M.V. Caroline from its christening in 1964 to the day in 1968 when it was "hijacked" and towed into harbor in Holland. And like all of this site it is "a work in progress" and is subject to additions, deletions and corrections from time to time. More detailed histories are available from sources listed in the bibliography at the bottom of this page. 1964 JANUARY 30 The Mi Amigo arrives in Las Palmas, Spain after nearly sinking en route from Galveston, Texas. FEBRUARY 6 Postmaster-General, Ernest Bevins, is questioned in the House of Commons concerning rumors about Radio Caroline. He states that broadcasting commercial radio programs from a ship will break international rules and international agreements on sharing of radio frequencies. Hesays that it would cause serious interference to radio communications in Britain and other countries, and hints that legislation might be introduced to deal with it. 13 The M.V.

Fredericia, a former Danish 702 ton passenger ferry leaves Rotterdam, Netherlands for Greenore, Erie. Her hull is specially strengthened to resist ice. She is rented by Planet Productions from the Swiss firm of Alranne. Plans by young Ronan O'Rahilly are to convert it to a radio ship called RADIO CAROLINE. 15 The Mi Amigo sails for Greenore, Eire (calling en route at Corunna), to have a new radio mast fitted. Ronan O'Rahilly and Allan Crawford owner of the Mi Amigo are running neck and neck to be the first to complete conversion of their ship and be the first Commercial Radio Ship in Britian. Crawford has been planning longer, but O'Rahilly's father, a wealthy industrialist also owns his own port in Greenore. Both groups use the facilities there to equip their ships. Some midnight shenanigans coupled with the Mi Amigo being forced out to anchor in the harbor mouth to make way for O'Rahilly senior's freighters created hard feelings.. Rough seas almost scupper the Mi Amigo, saved only by prompt action by her skipper. MARCH 27 Good Friday 6 p.m.

With strong winds tossing her about the M.V. Caroline drops anchor five miles off Harwich in international waters. At 9 p.m. that night Radio Caroline put out her first test signal on 201 meters (1495 kHz). 28 Easter Saturday. 12 noon: The 197 meters on the medium wave (1520 kHz) comes alive with "This is Radio Caroline" and Chris Moore introduces, as the first record, the Beatles recording of "Can't Buy Me Love". Britain's first commercial radio station is on the air. 29 Easter Sunday. Simon Dee starts the regular transmissions with: 'Hello everybody. This is Radio Caroline broadcasting on 199, your all day music station.' He announces that Caroline will be broadcasting modern light music, meaning'pop', every day from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. on I99 metres in the medium wave band. For the time being there will be no evening broadcast because of difficult reception, due to increased competition from continental stations after dark. As yet there is little advertising, though O'Rahilly claims that advertisers are 'interested', and are just waiting to see what kind of audience the station secures before committing themselves.

APRIL 3 The General Post Office officially requests the International Telecommunications Union (the body which controls all broadcasting throughout the world by regulating frequencies and powers of transmission) to help in stopping the pirate broadcasters. The ITU reminds Panama of a provision in international radio regulations that the use of broadcasting stations on board ships outside territorial waters was prohibited. 7 Postmaster General, Mr. Reginald Bevins informs the House of Commons that Panama has withdrawn registration from the vessel Caroline, and that he is considering the possibility of legislation to deal with such broadcasting. He says a number of actions are being contemplated and "jamming" has been considered. Mr. Bevins told the House that leading advertising associations have given an assurance that major advertisers would boycott the station; the gramophone record industry was co-operating. The GPO cuts off the ship-to-shore radio link, and announces that messages from the Caroline will be handled only in an emergency. Only the supply tender remains for communication with the land, as obviously arrangements about programmes commercials and so on could not be made over the air. When the tender leaves Harwich for international waters H.M.

Customs and Excise rule that it is leaving the country and, therefore, those on board have to carry passports, stores are inspected, and the shipping agents have to go through H.M. Waterguard, H.M. Immigrations and the Special Branch of the CID for each trip. The tenders, supplied by a Dutch salvage and ship delivery firm, travelled to Caroline about three or four times a week with food, fuel, water, relief crew, disc jockeys and, of course, records. 8 Two apprentice hairdressers at Wrotham, Wendy Bryce aged 17 and Pat Cunningham aged 19, picket a BBC transmitter at Wrotham in Kent. Both are members of a Radio Caroline Defence League and they carry a placard saying "Hands off Caroline". 9 The Post Office warns that Caroline listeners are technically liable to prosecution under the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949. A spokesman admits that it would be difficult to enforce the regulations since no action can be taken against anyone who had tuned in accidentally. A spokesman for the Post Office tells the Daily Mail "They are beyond territorial waters.

To stop them we will have to send a torpedo" and added "But that's a bit drastic, isn't it?". 20 Gallup Poll shows that Radio Caroline hasgained nearly seven million listeners in just three weeks of broadcasting. This doesn't include listeners under the age of seventeen, and the total was from a potential audience of only twenty million people. 21 12.30am: RADIO ATLANTA is off Lands End sailing for her anchorage when it's radio mast breaks. The 141 foot swaying aerial affects the steering and the Mi Amigo has to enter Falmouth for repairs, she arrives at 3pm. 27 Repairs are completed and the Mi Amigo sets sail and, drops anchor in her transmitting position. . The two shipsare 14 miles apart and both are broadcasting to the huge population of the Greater London area. MAY Her Majesty's vessel Venturous flying the Blue Ensign, draws close to Caroline on the port side. Permission is asked to board to see bonded stores. Caroline crews states that this is against the law appertaining to international waters and one man only will be allowed access in a lifeboat.

This offer is not accepted and at 12.33 p.m. the Venturous pulls away. Customs and Excise Officials confirm that their vessel had gone alongside Caroline. They clain the skipper had shouted to the crew through the loud hailer and made routine enquiries about their duty free stores. It denies that anyone made any attempt to board Caroline. 1 Radio Caroline broadcasts its first commercial. It is for the Duke of Bedford's Woburn Abbey. The Duke reports later that instead of 4,000 people some 4,500 turned up the day following the commercial in spite of very wet weather. 12 Radio Atlanta begins regular broadcasting. Australian DJ Col Nicol introduces the first program. Ronan O'Rahilly, with a typical gesture, sends Allan Crawford a "Good Luck" telegram. In a written Commons reply Mr Bevins claims that transmissions from Radio Caroline had caused interference to British and Belgian maritime services during the first few days of broadcasting, though interference since has been 'negligible'.

Mr Bevins says the phonographic industry had been in close touch with the GPO on the subject, and he also had representations from the Songwriters' Guild of Great Britain, which was anxious that the development of pirate broadcasting stations be stopped as soon as possible. Mr Bevins meets the Conservative Party's Radio and TV Committee. At this meeting he speaks of his plans for pirate radio and local sound broadcasting in Britain. News leaks to the effect that he has put off any action against the pirates. National newspapers carry headlines like: 'Pirate radio ship No. 2-onthe air - Bevins beaten.' JUNE Mr Bevins commits the Tories to reviewing the whole question of commercial broadcasting, should they be returned to power in the October election. The Labour Party ardently denounces, in the words of one of its M.P.s, the 'greedy money-grabbing lobby agitating for commercial radio'. The Tories, inevitably, become associated with the commercial radio lobby, and the Labour Party with the kill-joys interested in preserving the sanctity of the BBC monopoly. Barrister Jeremy Thorpe, the Liberal Member of Parliament for North Devon, introduces a Bill supported by a small group of M.P.s of all parties.

It would force all radio stations which broadcast advertisements to be registered with the Government. He tells Postmaster General, Mr. Reginald Bevins, that he was condoning a series of criminal breaches by not withdrawing the licences of people who listened to Offshore Radio. He points out that with the withdrawing of Panamanian shipping registration the ship had no protection from any warship in the world, was liable to seizure. The Bill had its first reading without opposition but it did not have Government backing an essential if it was to get through to the statute book. JULY 2 Radio Caroline and Radio Atlanta merge under the Caroline logo. It is agreed that MV Caroline, the larger, heavier and stronger vessel, should go North to a position off the coast of the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea. 3 Caroline sails north. Keeping outside territorial waters, she continues to broadcast all the way around the tip of England to her new position three and a half miles off Ramsey, Isle of Man. 6 8 a.m: Caroline, under Capt. Hangerfelt, is off Anglesea and playing requests for listeners in the area. The ship then moves off Dublin to play further requests for Irish listeners. Later they head for the Isle of Man.

Late in the afternoon of Tynwald Day the ship takes up her position off Ramsey and Radio Caroline North is born. DJs Jerry Leighton, Tom Lodge and Alan Turner were making friends with a whole new area of fans. OCTOBER Mr Anthony Wedgwood Benn becomes Postmaster-General. DECEMBER Radio Caroline asks the BBC for a recording of the Queen's Christmas Day message. It's refused on the grounds that the ship is not an authorised broadcasting station. Ronan O'Rahilly seeks a description of the word "authorised" and a list of the stations which had received copies but he doesn't push the point. 1965 & 14 Severe gales wrench off the starboard anchor from CAROLINE and she begins to drift. Within days a new 1 1/2 ton anchor is fitted and 4 1/2 tons of cable. The Isle of Man tourist board is given free advertising and the ship becomes a local attraction. 22 Britain, Belgium, Denmark, France, Greece, Luxembourg and Sweden sign a Council of Europe Agreement to ban pirate radio broadcasts 'on board ships, aircraft or any other floating or airborne objects'.

The agreement bans not only the broadcasts themselves but also bans anyone from providing the stations with supplies, equipment or broadcasting material. FEBRUARY The success of CAROLINE,and others prompts The National Broadcasting Development Committee headed by Sir Harmar Nicholls MP, (and including Lords Mancroft, and Grantchester and the historian A.J.P. Taylor on its committee) to press for Government action to start commercial radio. RADIO CAROLINE: present advertisement revenue runs at ï¿½15,000 weekly according to a spokesman. MARCH The Postmaster General repeats in Parliament his allegations against the Offshore Radio stations and Sir Knox Cunningham, the Conservative Member for South Antrim, asks for evidence. Mr. Ian Gilmour, Conservative Member for Central Norfolk, amid Tory cheers, says "The continued success of Radio Caroline has provided abundant evidence of public demand for radio services independent of the B.B.C." He contends that any delay in granting licences for such a station would be both retrograde and dogmatic. Another East Anglian Member of Parliament, Mr. Eldon Griffiths, Conservative, Bury St. Edmunds, tells a Conference of the Radio and T.V.

Retailers Association at Brighton,"The pirate stations are providing a service the B.B.C. has lamentably failed to provide. Millions of people, the large majority under 30, now listen regularly to these stations. Let us not have outright banning of a service which gives pleasure". Mr. Griffiths suggests the B.B.C. should "stop crying about pirate radio and start competing for audiences. APRIL 18 Easter Sunday: Radio Caroline celebrates first birthday. Ronan O'Rahilly introduced four "Bell" the Caroline insignia awards. He presents one personally to The Animals at London Airport just before they leave for New York. The award is for their "House of the Rising Sun" the best group record of the Year. Pet Clark flew in from France to receive her award for ''Down Town", the best female vocal recording, from Simon Dee. Simon also travels to Twickenham Film Studios to present the Beatles with their award as the best and most consistent artists. The best male vocal record of the year was "It's Not Unusual" and the award is presented by Burt Bacharach to Tom Jones. Recorded birthday greetings from individual artists and groups are included in the day's broadcasting schedule.

The messages were from Band of Angels, Cliff Richard, The Temptations, The Shadows, The Four Pennies, Roy Orbison, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, Donovan, The Honeycombs, The Supremes, Little Stevie Wonder, Dusty Springfield, Martha and the Vandellas, The Miracles, The Drifters, Bobby Vee, Peter and Gordon, Frankie Vaughan, Tom Jones and Eden Kane. OCTOBER 21 One hundred forty four people died when a coal mine slag hill collasped the local school in Aberfan, Wales. One hundred sixteen were school children. Labour Member Mrs. B. Braddock (Liverpool Exchange) launched an appeal in her name over Caroline, for the Aberfan Disaster Appeal. As a result she was able to present a cheque for ï¿½8,100 to Mr. Cledwyn Hughes, Secretary of State for Wales DECEMBER Planet Productions acquires the assets of Project Atlanta and Mr. Allan Crawford resigns from his direct interest in the company. Barry Ainley, who had been General Manager for several months, becomes joint managing director with main responsibilities on the administrative and financial side of Caroline.

Ronan O'Rahilly continues to take responsibility for programming and sales. Educated at the Sorbonne and Madrid Universities and with a B.Sc. (Econ.) at the London School of Economics, Barry Ainley had been a Merchant Banker prior to joining Caroline, . Ronan, tries without success, to arrange a summit meeting with the Postmaster General Mr. Ted Short, on board Caroline North. 21 Radio Caroline Club Ball at the New Brighton Tower Ballroom. It is a major event . Top line artists, including the Searchers, the Yardbirds, the Four Pennies, Brian Poole and the Tremeloes, Paul and Barry Ryan, the Honeycombs and Twinkle, are booked to appear and it is a complete sell out. 1966 JULY 2 The Government publishes The Marine etc., Broadcasting (Offences) Bill, under which broadcasts from ships and marine structures will be unlawful. It will be unlawful to instigate, finance, provide goods or in any way aid a pirate radio. The maximum penalties are to be two years imprisonment, or a fine, or both.

3 The BBC announces that it has made a proposal to the Post Office 'on the question of providing a continuous entertainment programme', probably to be carried on the Light Programme medium wavelength (247 meters). SEPTEMBER 21 Radio Caroline North DJ Mick Luvzit and Janet Terrett (Sister of DJ "Ugly" Ray Terrett are married on board the M.V. Caroline by the ship's captain and the Panamanian consul. OCTOBER 31 After normal close down at 8.30pm RADIO CAROLINE NORTH comes back on air at 10.30 pm to test transmit on 257 meters (1169 kHz). These tests continued every night until November 24. Day time output remains on 197 meters (1520 kHz). DECEMBER The Government publishes its White Paper on the future of broadcasting. All future transmissions from RADIO CAROLINE NORTH are issued on 257 meters (1169 kHz) 1967 MARCH 16 The Government moves the second reading of the Marine etc., Broadcasting (offences) Bill to become know as the MOA. Mr.

Short the Postmaster General announces the Government plans to provide more choice for listeners, by another popular music programme by the end of the year. There were also plans to provide further choice in nine selected areas, as a prelude to setting-up of a national system of local radio. JULY 13 The BBC announces that their first local radio station will begin operations from Leicester on Nov. 8 AUGUST 15 The CAROLINE organization opens an office in Holland at Singe 160, Amsterdam. CAROLINE broadcasts continue despite M.O.A. 21 The Manx Parliament, The House of Keys, reluctantly ratifies the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act at 8.30 pm bringing it into line with the mainland. It becomes effective from midnight. At Midnight DJ Don Allan announces 'This is the Northern Voice of RADIO CAROLINE INTERNATIONAL on 259 meters, the continuing voice of free radio for the British isles.' 1968 Radio Caroline - British Pathé British Pathé Description London and off Harwich, Essex. Film in two sections. First is a 'travelogue' style look at the River Thames. Second is a look at life aboard the ship that hosts Radio Caroline.

Scenic shot of mountainous British landscape with lakes and streams. Various views of riverside buildings and houseboats. Scenes beside the River Thames (possibly Richmond or Teddington?) - narrator is rambling on about Britain being an "island race ... being at our best on the water's edge." Swans. Water where it is "the Queen's Highway" - central London scenes from the Thames - views of Tower Bridge, the Tower of London, large boats, barges etc. The Cutty Sark - narrator speaks of our "swashbuckling history". Modern piracy now - five D.J.s (Disc Jockeys) climb aboard a boat (called "Offshore 1") which will take them to the Radio Caroline ship. One is Tony Blackburn (holding an Elvis record), another is Simon Dee, - the other two are currently unidentified. "Piracy, that's what is happening here, with the connivance of almost every teenager in South East England" states the narrator. The DJs chat, drink cups of tea and look at their records on their way to the Radio Caroline ship. The DJs climb off one ship onto the other. Various shots of the studios on board ship. A record is cued up.

C/U of the record on the turntable. Music plays as we are given a little tour of the ship. DJs choose records and reply to fan letters. C/U of one of the DJs with an excellent beard who is admiring a photograph of two girls that he has been sent. Tony Blackburn selects some 45s to play. Simon Dee is at the typewriter. The bearded DJ plays a record. Tony is seen recording the sound of the ship's bell. We see the ship's skipper at work. The DJs play chess on deck. Another DJ spins a disc - the fabulous Unit Four Plus Two playing "Concrete and Clay" - see other record. Note: any assistance with names of DJs gratefully received - one might be Stuart Henry? Cuts exist - see other records. Tags

Question: Which DJ spoke the first words on Radio Caroline?
Answer: SIMON DEE