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"You Dog! You Son of a *****! You Speckled-Shirt Dog!" – Pirate Curse, 1722 ITLAPD started in 2002 and gets bigger every year. Our old sea dog friends (and Honoraaaary Anaaaarrraks) The Pirate Guys, Mark 'Cap'n Slappy' Summers and John 'Ol' Chumbucket' Baur, want to know how you intend to celebrate, so they can post the details on their site. (If you are in need of inspaaaarration, visit the previous years' arrrrchives and see what has gone afore.) No doubt there will be plenty of attempts to top the world record of the most number of pirates gathered together in one place, but they'll all have their work cutlassed out to do it. On 26th June 2011, over 8,734 buccaneers assembled on Penance promenade (AVAST number) to smash the previous world record set by 6,166 renegades in Hastings in 2010. The Pirate Guys have numerous fun downloads on their site plus individual sections for each participating country. They are particularly interested in hearing about ITLAPD events arrrrganised in aid of good causes. They'd also quite like you to buy copies of their book, 'The Pirate Life – unleashing your inner Buccaneer'. Their own Mad Sally designed this year's ITLAPD teeshirt. 'Bootylicious – What do the pirates of yore tell us about their modern counterparts?' is a 4-page New Yorker review by Caleb Crain of 'The Invisible Hook: The Hidden Economics of Pirates' by Peter T Leeson. The piece and Crain's subsequent blog are a mine of information on the subject of high seas buccaneering. As there were only four known female pirates, the on-board ambience of a pirate ship was, according to Leeson, "energetic and testosterone filled, probably similar to a college fraternity only with peglegs, fewer teeth, and pistol duelling". Sounds a bit like the Sixties offshore stations! A large number pirates of the offshore radio kind, all experts on Marine Offences, be appearin' in our special Radio London ILAPD Supplement, presented by PARROT Pirate Anoraks Revere Real Offshore Terminology. They represent Radio Caroline North and South, City, Essex, London, 270, Scotland and RNI. We even have renegades from the land-bound Radio Luxembourg! You can even do your Googles searches in the language of the buccaneers. |
I agree that the ship looks similar. Apparently, it's a Buckley-class destroyer escort, and the ship they used for filming was USS Whitehurst (DE-634)
The USS Density was a minesweeper and her number was AM218, so she wasn't the same class of vessel, however, many of the WWII ships did look similar.
On Page 2, we have a link to a website with a fascinating feature published by the US Coastguard Service about the MV Courier, the ship that housed Voice of America. On the same site, there's a feature about the USCG Tanager AM/MSF-385; WTR-885. Tanager is a sister to the USS Density.
Trailer for 'The Enemy Below' here.
First English feature on REM Island (Right) Plans for the artifical platform. A larger version can be viewed in Han's feature. "Of course the owners of the REM project could have used a ship for television transmissions," Hans writes, "But knowing the immerse technical difficulties in transmitting TV from a ship; they decided that a sea-bed-based island in international waters would be the simple and perfect answer." The government closed down the popular stations in mid-December 1964. |
32 Years? How did he do it? Peter Young says: "On Saturday August 27th, between 3 and 4pm, I paid tribute to the two great songwriters Jerry Leiber and Nick Ashford, who sadly left us on August 22nd. It was a double-bubble ‘Soul Cellar’ this Bank Holiday weekend, as we celebrated the show’s 32nd anniversary. Every record from 4-6pm included the word ‘soul’ in the title. Curtis Mayfield, Fontella Bass, Bobby Byrd, Edwin Starr, Ben E. King, Ike and Tina Turner and Sam and Dave were all doing their thing. 32 years! How has he done it, why has he done it, and how much longer will he continue to do it? None of these questions were answered. PY every Saturday, 1500 - 1800 BST. Jazz FM programme schedule. Shows should be available on-line for one week from transmission date. |
Their Final Hour Dear Mary and Chris, For 44 years, 3pm August 14th has always had a special place in my radio heart - I shall as always be recalling those most memorable days and what joy Big L bought us. Your dedication to the Radio London website has been incredible and who would have thought so much information is still coming in – a very big thank you! Best regards, Francis Pullen, Cambridge The story of the single on the right is in the updated Mini-memories, Page 11, with additions 26/08/11, by Chris Edwards. |
The greatest hit of Tony and Arnold! Perhaps not Tony Blackburn's greatest solo hit – and certainly not a Fab Forty entry – here's a record featuring both Tony and his superstar pooch, Arnold! Arnold seems to have changed considerably from the portrait on the sleeve to the time we met him during the 2009 Pirate BBC Essex broadcast! (Far right) |
New York outlaws Pirate Radio
As New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed legislation making the operation of an AM or FM radio station without a license illegal in the state of New York, an appropriate song (and also for August 14th) is 'Pirate Radio' by John Hyatt –"So how far do we have to go to hear that Pirate Radio?". (Shame about the spelling, though.)
Over in the Netherlands, a similar outlawing of pirate radio is taking place.
August Birthdays Bill Hearne, the Caroline and London DJ who's still on our 'missing offshore' list, is 84 on August 6th. Bill worked aboard both Caroline ships and had a short stint on Big L in 1966 before joining Luxembourg. If anyone knows where he is, we'd love to wish Bill a happy birthday. Celebrating on August 14th (bad choice of birthday!) is Caroline's George Hare. Greetings to all of you pop-pickers! |
First Otway the Microstar, now Otway the Movie Star "We've done The London Astoria, The Royal Albert Hall and The London Palladium," he says, "Now we intend to book one of the huge cinemas in Leicester Square for the World Premiere of Otway The Blockbuster." Filming commenced on July 9th at Friars Square Shopping Centre in John's hometown, where he cut the ribbon to officially launch the merger of Age Concern and Help the Aged under the banner of Age UK, Buckinghamshire. See the Radio London Blockbuster Photo Gallery. |
Also seen in Friars Square Fab Forty artist John Dominic, former lead singer with the Bo Street Runners, came with the Otway entourage to witness the Age UK opening. John says he played at John's 'retirement' gig, fifteen years ago. John Otway retire? Never! |
Watery Wickets Ray Clark has kindly sent some personal photos of the event, which he covered for BBC Essex, apparently with mic in one hand, glass in the other. Not much chance of either batting or catching for Mr Clark, then! (The Knees Club Founder is disappointed to note that the Clark patellae have been kept under wraps.) |
I've just read John's report on the LV18 opening – thanks for putting this up on your website. I'm the chap who spoke to John and said he didn't know me but I'd read his previous report on your site!
I noticed that the replay of the Steve Scruton programme is not available now, but I managed to get a copy and have put this on my mediafire page in case your readers want to listen. This is quite a large file - 166MB. It's a straight copy of the whole programme as I haven't had time to edit it!Readers may be interested in my website which has radio 'stuff' on it.
BBC Essex at Offical Opening Click here for audio courtesy of Steve Scruton and BBC Essex – Steve interviews Tony O'Neil; Colin Crawford, Chairman of the Pharos Trust, introduces Councillor Neil Stock, Leader of Tendring District Council, who performs the ribbon-cutting. John Sales' photo report of the ship at her new anchorage (taken on a proper summer's day!) is here. |
Photo: Tony O'Neil |
René's latest offshore radio 'ship' is an island! www.renevandenabeelen.net has a fascinating chapter about Radio Veronica, complete with unique personal photos, newspaper clippings and even Super 8 movies that René shot in the Seventies. www.radioships.com offers tin miniatures of ships that housed legendary radio stations. He writes: I thought you might like to know that (much sooner then I expected) my tin miniature number 4 is available! This time it's no ship but an island: the REM island. (Right) REM island housed not only a radio station (the first Radio Northsea) but also a television station (yes, you guessed it: TV Northsea.) While it was only active for four months before the government closed it down in mid-December 1964, it was hugely popular. We are sure that Radio London fans would much prefer René's next model to be the Galaxy, so get voting! |
Otis was at the Upper Cut. Were You? Bob Morris is researching an article about ex-boxer Billy Walker's Upper Cut Club in Woodgrange Road, London E7, a site with strong Big L connections and where Roger Day was the resident DJ before joining Caroline. The club opened on Wednesday, December 21st 1966 and ran for a year Bob Says:
Anyone with memories of attending, please get in touch with Bob via the Rokpool website. If you were at a Radio London gig, we'd like to know too! This NME photo shows Otis Redding indicating his performance with the other Stax Tour artists at the Upper Cut Club on Saturday, March 18th 1967. See the Fab Forty for 12/03/67 to see a larger version of the picture and more background info, and the Christmas Scrap Book for the strange story of the Upper Cut Boxing Day Family Afternoon. |
Jordan 'Jerry' Ragovoy The Grammy award-winning songwriter and producer Jerry Ragovoy has died in New York, aged 80. See Fab Forty 29/01/67; Billboard Tribute by Al Kooper |
The collection went for $361,938/£224,034.
Is it art or is it radio? US-based artist Adam Calkin has constructed a pop-up pirate station in a shipping container for the Mis-Design exhibition at the University of Melbourne’s Victorian College – and it is intended to be a proper, broadcasting station. As it's somewhat difficult to see the radio tower in the night-time photograph on the above site, we have reproduced a lighter version for our viewers. |
Dave told Radio Times he was flattered by Aung San Suu Kyi's comments, but not surprised, seeing as the show always had a massive postbag. He recalled receiving one letter addressed to 'Daily Trousers' and said, "Maybe reception wasn't so good then."
Suddenly elevated to 'man of the moment', DLT features in a full-page interview in the Radio Times for July 2nd to 6th, where he reveals that he is still out to seek revenge on Noel Edmunds for the 'Gotcha' prank that Noel played on him many years ago during a quiz on his Saturday morning show.
July Birthday Boys Many happy returns to everyone. |
We missed Mich's Big Day! Mich's 70th birthday was on June 6th, but unfortunately, we did not hear about the special occasion until a month later. |
Lennon Gold Coin fails to sell The Royal Mint struck a one-off gold version of the Alderney silver coin that had been released on what would have been John's 70th birthday, October 9th, 2010. 30,000 members of the public had voted in an online poll to choose one of six 'Great Britons' from history that they felt was worthy to enhance a coin. The former Beatle received 92% of the votes. Lennon's iconic sixties image was designed by sculptor Danuta Solowiej-Wedderburn. The proceeds of the sale were intended to benefit the Alder Hey 'Imagine' appeal, of which Yoko Ono is a Patron. |
Caroline Fair Shot
Mike Terry writes, "This has just been posted on the Caroline website":
Radio Caroline has, after discussions with politicians and media practitioners, decided to change the objective of our Fair's Fair campaign. The station has been calling on Ofcom to treat the station as a special case and be allowed a licence to transmit our programmes on medium wave to the south east of the UK. Now we are calling on Ofcom to find a frequency and advertise its availability, giving us the chance to apply. Please go to the campaign website for full details and how you can help.
The Ultimate Offshore Radio Station (updated 24th June)
A month or two back, Mike Terry kindly pointed us to a fascinating feature published by the US Coastguard Service about the MV Courier, the ship that housed Voice of America.
On the same website, there's a feature about the USCG Tanager AM/MSF-385; WTR-885. Tanager is a sister to the Big L ship USS Density.
Now Mike Harris writes:
Here's a bit of 'radio trivia' that you might enjoy! It's a page from the Web site of the Modesto [CA] Radio Museum about a radio ship used by Voice of America in the early 1950s. I'd say the 'pirates' would have been quite envious of both the ship itself and of the 150kw transmitter! The article even gives a nod to Caroline.
At the Modesto Museum site, I also found a page with some rather good photos of the radio forts and an interview with Radio Essex DJ Paul Peters.
If anyone can supply a photo of the station on the small boat in the lake, we'd love to see it!
Impossibility is difficult, miracles take a little bit longer. The idea that we could bring together the major players in UK Sixties pirate radio seemed forlorn. Simon Dee, Kenny Everett and Daffy Don Allan have left us, Bob Stewart and Mick Luvzit can’t travel from the USA and Canada. With so many pirate colleagues gone or in ill-health, I had to think about who I worked with, would they be available and would they want to do a gig for nothing online and absolutely live?
I drew up my list and asked Shaun Tilley to produce our shows and bring it all together and now it's come to pass. A truly historic series of live programmes which I've called 'The Last Pirates Standing'.
Wednesday, 15th June 2011 will be remembered in radio history for the final united front of some of the finest seamen in musical history...The Emperor Rosko (Radio Caroline), Tony Blackburn (Radio Caroline & Radio London), Paul Burnett (270), Larry Tremaine (RNI), Mark Wesley (Essex/270/Radio Scotland), Ed Stewart (Radio London) and The Royal Ruling Prince Tony (Radio Caroline South and North).
Live all day from Zurich’s International Radio Festival, we brought you 'A Tribute to the UK Offshore Pirates'.
To all my colleagues....weren’t we lucky? To all our listeners.... weren’t we blessed? Tony."
(Right) Stewpot models his Radio London teeshirt – available only from this website!
(Thanks to Fab Alan Field for grabbing the photo. Click on it to view a gallery of screen grabs taken on the day).
We listeners are all very much hoping that this will be far from the last-ever UK offshore broadcast.
Just to let you know that I shot a video yesterday (June 14th) of Edwin Bollier in his office, with Larry Tremaine being interviewed by Tony Prince and also with Tony Blackburn, Ed Stewart and Paul Burnett joining in. Edwin was a very kind host and spoke about RNI and also about the Lockerbie affair. He is very keen to prove his innocence and is writing two books, one about RNI and the other about the Lockerbie affair. I will publish the video on-line soon.
Pictures of Edwin appearing on Larry Tremaine's show are included on the page of screen shots.