Lucky there are a lot of people who have those little memories to the station. When this book had his pre-publication on internet I asked the reader to write in just a few lines his or her memory to the station. Chris Faulkner goes back to his youth by writing: 'My memory of 'the Old Girl' comes from the time she moved to the Isle of Mann in 1964. My parents house in Holyhead, North Wales, looked out over Newry Beach and we often saw various ships stopping off just behind the breakwater to pick up the pilot for their onward journey. (Blue Funnel line vessels in particular). Just as I was about to go to school one morning, my mother called me and my brother into my parents bedroom to watch the M.V. Caroline coming in to pick up her pilot. We were so amazed at the size of her mast never having seen anything like it before. She stayed behind the breakwater for about 15-20 minutes and we watched before heading north toward, we assumed the I.O.M. This memory has never left me and I can remember it made us all late for school, though as my mother was also my teacher at primary school, it didn't matter so much for me!'From Shaun in California response on our chapters on internet: 'Thanks for the latest instalment. This chapter, about the coming back of Radio Caroline in 1983, brought back some very happy memories. I vividly remember the days leading up to the first broadcast from the Ross, the test tones, the (usually incorrect!) media reports and the shock of hearing just how powerful the signal was. I'd never heard anything like it before. Nice to think about Dixie Peach, too. Have you ever met the guy? I could never figure out if he was "high on life" or high on some of that famous Falls Head Herb (usually found in the Overdrive studio, so John Bennett tells me). Wonder where he is now? The late seventies model of Radio Caroline is still my favorite, despite the fact they were on and off the air more than a partisan station in WW2. This is shaping up to be a great book!
Andries Peterson from the Netherlands has also his own memories: 'I had head from Radio Caroline before the period they re started transmissions of the Dutch coast, late 1973. But next to hear talking other people on the subject I never heard really the Sound of the Nation, as it was mentioned. I must say the people on the station got my sympathy very quickly. I have to say it perfectly simple that I always hated the intrusive way deejays tried to influence my taste on other radio stations. I never had the idea to buy singles as they got so much airplay and therefore entered the charts. No, I did buy records which were also nice and were brought to my ears by listening to Radio Caroline, which was other music than brought on other stations. They really got more and more sympathy after August 31st 1974, when other stations in international waters of the Dutch coast stopped their transmissions and Radio Caroline survived and went on enjoying the listener. I tried also to get the best quality out of my car radio, while listening to the station and was always terrible fed up when Caroline was off the air again and I was forced to tune in to the sound of Hilversum 3, the then so called national pop station in the Netherlands. This was all in the seventies but to round up my memory I've to say that the above lead to helping the Dutch Caroline. And that's the group from Sietse Brouwer in Harlingen. It was the reason to help them with the promotion team when they were busy getting as much as possible cable networks, putting the signal of Radio Caroline on their network in the late nineties of last century and in the early years of this century. It resulted in something called a promotion team but due to the fact there was a guy, Peter Fransz, who was - in my eyes - totally arbitrary, I decided to step aside.'Next one comes from Groningen in the North East of the Netherlands. From there Bert Alting wrote in: 'I was sleeping and living partly on a little room on the loft of the house and in the early evenings in the mid seventies I tried never to miss the closedown of Radio Mi Amigo, the sister station in those days of Radio Caroline, and the daily opening of Radio Caroline. Reception at that hour was far more difficult than during daytime and so I did my utmost to get the best reception possible, although not every day I was successful. Bit how glad I was every time I heard the famous 'ding ding' Caroline bell, followed by the opening tune from those days 'On my way back home' from The New Riders on the Purple Sage'. So when I succeeded to get a good signal during the evening I knew it would be a very good evening. Radio Caroline, the phenomenal. She was so fine, I made her mine, her name is Caroline!'
And then a little memory which came in from Mary Payne, director of the Radio London company which does a lot of work, including maintaining an excellent site on the history of Radio London - together with her husband Chris. Mary wrote: 'On another matter, I have been thinking about your forthcoming Caroline book and wondered if you would be including the titles of any of the records played on the Test Transmission tapes? I can clearly recall 'Pushover' by Etta James and The Shoop Shoop Song (It's In His Kiss) by Betty Everett being two of the tracks. I recall that Easter weekend in 1964 when Radio Caroline arrived very well. I was extremely excited about the new station and borrowed a big transistor radio from my grandmother, so that I could take the music everywhere I went. On Easter Saturday, my parents wanted to go and view a show house on a new estate. This was not because they wanted to buy a house, but because the ones on the new estate had been constructed with an innovative type of central heating, which blew hot air through ducts under the floor. They were keen to see what this heating was like, with a view to installing it in their own home. I remember wandering around that show house with my tranny on my arm. The whole of the school Easter holiday, my friend Mozz and I took the tranny with us everywhere. The only problem I had with it was the weight of it hanging on my arm (my right arm is probably longer than my left one now) and being able to find sufficient pocket money to buy the batteries! I don't think Grandma saw her radio again till I managed to get a small tranny of my own to replace it.'
Here's one from 'a Johnnie''Firstly may I say that I always enjoy reading your reports and congratulate you on a splendid job. Secondly, I feel that I have to put forward a little in the way of defence for Radio Caroline. I am enjoying their programmes immensely at present but there always seems to be a lot of criticism about the station no matter what they do. "Why do we have to pay, why aren't they out at sea, the music's no good", etc. I wonder if any of the people who criticise have even tried setting up or running a radio station on land, let alone from 12 miles out to sea with the law heavily biased against them. Now I don't know Peter Moore personally so cannot comment on the type of person he is, but I do know that he has done a lot for Caroline over the past few years and I'm sure without him it would still be nowhere to be heard. The fact is that the station is on air 24hrs a day, 7 days a week - something I would have not thought possible not that long ago. People have to move away from the idea that Caroline can only broadcast from a boat - I thought that back in the early days we were fighting for free radio to be legalised ('free' as in freedom of speech) and on land!! There are very few restrictions placed on Caroline's licence, allowing them to broadcast virtually what they like within the law. To keep it this way they have had to steer clear of big investors (and conventional means of broadcasting) which, although a nice idea, has it's draw backs. One is lack of finance, so presenters work for nothing - we (Caroline supporters) can ask for no greater dedication - and I am quite happy to do my bit and help keep the dream alive with my monthly subscription. Gaining advertising is very much a Catch 22 situation, firstly you need good audience figures and to do that a greater prominence needs to be sought, hence the push for a Sky EPG listing. It also requires a good sales team and, of course, sales people don't work for nothing. Gradually Caroline is fighting it's way back and I'm sure that once there, and advertising is coming in there will be no need for listener donations. No one said it would be an easy or fast journey, but I, for one, can only see better things for the future. Best regards Johnnie Lang Caroline Supporter
Also Philip Coleman was selected to be a part of this chapter: 'I do not think my Caroline memories deserve a mention in the Caroline's special but there are two which may be of interest to you: 1: On 30th September 1972 I was a student with a part time job. I took my radio to work and annoyed everyone by listening to RNI in Dutch on short-wave. I thought something may happen and sure enough at 1pm British time on came RNI 2. By about 3.45pm the signal was really very poor so I tuned into Manx radio and there was Daffy Don Allen with his country and Western Jamboree. He announced towards the end of the programme that it was his last show because he had accepted an offer to become programme controller of RNI! At that time I thought RNI 2 was here to stay. The highlight however was picking up test transmissions from Radio Caroline (I had missed the tests of the
previous day).How different it seemed 6 weeks later when the Mi Amigo had no mast and RNI no English service.
Between 26th and 30th December 1973 a friend and I went to Holland for a few days. We almost got on board the MEBO II with the assistance of Brian McKenzie but although we went out on the Trip tender the weather was too bad to allow boarding. The following day we went to Caroline House in the Hague. We simply knocked on the door which was answered by a young Canadian who called himself Rob Day. By and large the old hands ignored us but Rob was very enthusiastic and took us to the top floor where the new studios of Radio Mi Amigo were being given a dry run. Andy Archer then came in to say he and Johnny Jason wanted to record the opening programme for Radio Seagull and asked Rob, my friend and I to by a bottle of sparking white wine for 10 guilders which could be used to sound like champagne when 'opened' on air. We duly bought the wine but do not know if it was the one heard when Radio Seagull opened on the 7th January 1974. Knowing the lads at Caroline it was probably drunk and a replacement bought.We arranged to meet the Caroline tender to go out to the ship but no one turned up. A well nourished captain said they often failed to appear for a tender but he always got paid! Rob Day never made it to the airwaves (to the best of my knowledge) and that was that. A little about myself. I live in Wigan, just west of Manchester. I remember Caroline North with great affection. I am taking a career break from my profession as a Solicitor and in 2001 was fortunate to be allowed to run the news service from the Mi Amigo RSL from the LV18 where I met Bart Serlier among many others. I came to your Radio Day in 2002 and thoroughly enjoyed it but could not make it to Radio Day 2003 when you changed the date at the last moment (no criticism meant at all) and the new date coincided with half term for schoolchildren in the north of the UK and air fares rocketed. So don't change from the 2nd October so I can enjoy that day too!! With very best wishes Phil Coleman'.
Early in this special celebration year my good friend Rob Olthof, from the Foundation for Media Communication, and I did our annual visit to England and once of the days during the week, mostly on Wednesday, we visit our friends in Whitstable. Although we only come in once a year in one of the pubs in main street, the landlord knows us very well. If this is why we have always such high level noises or he does enjoy the atmosphere all the guys gathering together talking about the Offshore Radio from the past is for you, the reader, to decide. We did meet up with some five other people, including Bob LeRoi and Johnny Lewis. Of course we did talked a lot on the subject 'Caroline'. To my surprise Bob mentioned just in short the plans to get an ILR- stations on the MV Ross Revenge, after the ship stranded on the Goodwin Sands. He promised to sent me some lines on it for the book and here it is: 'In the early 90's, soon after the Ross Revenge was dragged of the Goodwin Sands and taken into Dover, a plan was conceived by the team of the then Invicta Radio Group. Comprising the fairly nautical crew of Roger Day, Andy Archer, Johnny Lewis, Nigel Harris, Bob Matthews and Bob Le-Roi. The ship would be moved to a permanent mooring in Ramsgate Harbour with the Gold service at the time called Coast operating like the FM services from Whitstable studios being moved onto the ship to become Radio Caroline. Much improvements to the layout of the ship was planned but basically the studios would have remained. Links would have been to the 603 and the 1242 kHz transmitters as before, but programmes would have taken on a slightly different slant. The project not unexpectedly hit the quay side, but it would have been interesting should the plan have come to fruition.'Hopefully one day either one of the boys will give a full report on the subject. Maybe when it's 50 years ago Simon Dee opened the station officially.
It was Mark Reynolds writing in from Buckinghamshire responding on the question to bring in his personal memory: 'I did learn about offshore radio in late 1966 and followed the stations from that point on. After the MOB became law on August 15th 1967 we had to wait a long time for new offshore radio stations - although we did have our Caroline stations up till March 1968. From 1970 on a lot happened in offshore radio, which has often be forgotten by people who write about this subject in books. In the seventies and eighties is was great to follow all the things which were happening as there were two magazines in which all the facts and figures were published from day to day. Therefore I would like to thank the Monitor Magazine from Benfleet from the later Buster Pearson and the Pirate Radio News team from the Netherlands, including Hans Knot. Since a couple of years we can read a lot on the subject Offshore Radio on several internet sites and versus the International Report. Next to that we can listen in to Radio Caroline on internet and satellite. The station hasn't anymore the glamour it had in the High Seas Days but I'm still enjoying all the memories. As those people, who did promote the stations with their magazines and internet sites, wouldn't have been there, we wouldn't celebrate Caroline's 40th birthday this year.