Listening to Radio Caroline

Five periods and five formats. Since the very day Radio Caroline was born, way back in March 1964, I've been a dedicated follower of fashion. And, like fashion has changed over the past four decades, so did my favourite station. Never did Radio Caroline pursue a continuing music policy, because the management — or as I prefer to call it: the benign lack of any management — trusted the deejays on board to play what ever they liked to play. That is also the reason why each special category of listeners prefers its own special episode out of the life of Radio Caroline and dislikes some of the others. Only the real die-hards enjoyed all periods. Yes, I must admit that even some of those now are floating away from their once favourite station, as in their eyes and to their ears Radio Caroline isn't anymore the free radio station it once was. As I see things, the four decades of Radio Caroline's existence as an organisation can be divided into five periods. Step by step I will take you through the changing formats of the music.

As is known by insiders, it became very difficult for the Caroline organisation to acquire sufficient advertisers and plug records in Great Britain once the Marine Offences Bill had become act. Of course, it was not very clever of O'Rahilly and his colleagues to keep both their ships in international waters off the British coast instead of turning them into the direction of the Dutch coast. We must not forget, though, that until the ships were seized in March 1968 by the tendering company Wijsmuller, more "new" music was played on Radio Caroline than ever before, including the music heard in those long Major Minor commercials. Up until now, when hearing artists like the Dubliners, Raymond Lévèfre, David McWilliams and the like, these commercials are coming back into my mind, inevitably accompanied by the words: "New on Major Minor." It was the music of the record label of Philip Solomon — the new financial backer of the station. Solomon did more things to spoil the station. After all, with Ronan O'Rahilly at the back, he was the one who was responsible for the towing-away of the Caroline ships. He simply forgot that paying bills is an important fact of life. Instead of hiring a good debt collector, one of the Wijsmuller brothers decided to raise the anchors of both radio ships, thereby ending Caroline's first period.

September 1972 there were test transmissions on the "259." Misleading almost everyone, on several occasions Van Dam had proclaimed that in the future the MV Mi Amigo would be serving as a hotel annex museum for Caroline fans, who also would have the opportunity to make their own program on board of the ship. Of course, some money had to be paid for that. At the day, when the ship left IJmuiden harbour, still this museum story was used. To make the necessary preparations, the ship, so the authorities were told, would be tugged to a harbour in England. Instead, not far away from IJmuiden, the anchor was plunged into international waters and the old lady was back where she belonged. Soon afterwards the mast, which had been on the ship since 1964, broke down. A new, temporary mast was built and the "199" became the next spot for Van Dam and his friends to make test programmes. The voices were heard of deejays whose capabilities ranged from moderate to bad, but their enthusiasm radiated over the air waves to the listeners: "We are back." As listeners, we were happy: there was action again.

The album format. The third period is, in my opinion, a very long one, say from January 1973 up till March 1980. Radio Caroline first tried Dutch and English language programs with an office at the Zeekant in Scheveningen and later on with studios in the Van Hoogendorpstraat in The Hague. Next they helped Radio Veronica by renting their ship to this station in April 1973. They needed new equipment and money as desperately as the Veronica organisation needed a radio ship, as their own one was on the beach of Scheveningen due to a heavy storm. Those were the days before that famous "April 18th 1973" — the day of the biggest demonstration ever held up until then in the Netherlands. Some 150.000 people demonstrated pro the offshore stations and against the Dutch government, which had plans to close down the offshore stations. The happening had to be promoted on a transmitter and so Dennis King came up with the idea to lend the MV Mi Amigo for this purpose. When O'Rahilly agreed, he got a lot of free publicity in return, posing again as "the good grey God of radio."

The enterprise was almost completely financed by the many religious programs, which went out and mainly originated from the USA and partly from Holland. One thing is certain, the guy who did organise these religious broadcasters, did earn a lot of money in those days. And what about the commercials in those days? Well partly they were paid for but there were also other arrangements. A chicken restaurant, for example, got free airplay for filling the freezers onboard the MV Mi Amigo. One of the Flemish people involved in the organisation was in need for a good car. A free commercial on the station did the thing. Next, he was in need for some bodily entertainment, which he could get at a so-called sex farm and, yes, there was a certain commercial played for such a company on the Dutch service of Radio Caroline. The period ended in March 1980, when the MV Mi Amigo, after its long fight with the Dutch and British authorities to upheld the spirit of the offshore radio stations, at last did sink beneath the waves at the Knock Deep Channel.

Still, a lot of names are coming into my mind when I think of the deejays. Some of them were very good, like Andy Archer, J. Jackson and Simon Barrett to name a few of them. The rest, however, were moderate to bad deejays. In the beginning the "963" signal was extremely good. Owing to its Dutch contributor "Radio Monique" and again many religious organisations, Radio Caroline could stay on the air. The Dutch also looked after the ship in cleaning and painting; the British deejays always went to bed straight after finishing their programmes. When, in November 1987, the mast came down, the organisation went down with it. Sister station Radio Monique left the scene and Radio 819 and Radio 558 became the Dutch providers of money for O'Rahilly and his friends. Peter Moore came round the corner as acting manager and still is there. But, in 1989 the Dutch authorities thought to bring a lasting end to the broadcasts by entering the ship and taking the equipment and records to a store house in Blijkswijk, the Netherlands.

The satellite period. From that time on several, so-called RSL's were held on different locations from the ship, simply to get the name "Caroline" on the map again. But our feelings for Radio Caroline grew less and less. What to do with recordings which are made by listening to a radio station with only a few watts of power? Several other attempts were made, I think, with starting satellite programs in the USA, even followed by many more. I do call this the fifth period, the so-called "satellite period." What more to say about those five periods? If I have to rate this period, I will give it a grade B- for its programmes throughout the satellite period. Some deejays are wonderful, like Nigel Harris, Roger Day and John Lewis. Others, however, are really boring just like the deejay I heard presenting the most obscure records on a Sunday morning — that is prime time — at the end of 2003. When asked, Peter Moore agreed that she was not particularly good at her place. He added, though, that he could not replace her because there he had nobody else to take her place. I think, this does explain why the advertisers don't want to buy airtime — and the programmes never will get any better.