Working for the Voice of Peace

A meeting at Flasback. I am sure that many people who are reading these memories wished through the years that one day they could try their hand at the "watery wireless." But how to join a pirate station in the past? Clearly some contacts were required, and a chance for Robbie Owen to make these contacts appeared at Flashback '67, a happening in an hotel nearby London's Heathrow Airport in the summer of 1977. As it was ten years ago the British MOA came in force, a lot of people came together to hear the stories of several people who were involved in Offshore Radio. Representing the VOP there were deejays Carl Kingston and Mark Hurrell. Let's follow the memories from Robbie Owen who has worked on the Peace Ship in 1978.

Getting aboard. But is was not yet time for Robbie to leave. First he heard that Abie was on hunger strike against continued Israeli settlements in occupied territories and not much later that the station had closed down and was up for sale. Also it was mentioned that Abie's health was deteriorating. So Robbie was asking himself if he had given up his American plans for nothing?

"I kept in regular contact with the office, and it came as a great relief when I heard, on the external service of Israel Radio that Abie Nathan had ended his fast. I immediately contacted the office and was told that a ticket would be sent soon. It too two weeks and it was only then that I really felt I was going! On the day before I was due to take off I received a call from Crispian St, John, who said that the station was off the air again and the engineer Mike Galloway had left. It had been alleged that Mike had in some way arranged the breakdown, and a report to this effect appeared in the Israeli press along with a picture of Mike."

Just practising. Of course everytime crew and deejays succeeded in getting onboard the Peace Ship again but Robbie remembers he really was frightened the first time: "I gritted my teeth as one day my heavy suitcase was hauled up the side of an old piece of rope. I was told not to worry as they had never lost anything before. A few weeks after a crate of milk got broken, and a irreplaceable tape recording plumbed under. I clambered aboard my new home around 5:00 p.m. Several deejays introduced themselves, including Guy Starkey, who left the ship the same day. He wished me luck and complained bitterly about the humidity. By this time the weather was tiring me out, so it was a great relief when Vince Mould showed me to my air-conditioned cabin. The cabins were small, but comfortable, and the one Vince and I shared was situated furthest from the "noise centres" (such as studios and generators), so I was always able to sleep soundly. On board at that time were the ship's engineer (the only qualified seaman on board) Bill Bennett, who was assisted by crew man Peter Daphne; on the technical side Dutchman Bill Danse, who was working hard to sort out the transmitter problems; and his assistants Canadian engineer Bruce Sabsay and a young Israeli Radio Ham, Noam Aviram. On the broadcast staff were Crispian, Steve Foster, Roger Swann, Vince Mould, Kenny Page, and Malcolm Barry. There was no designated cook, but owing to an ill-timed admission that he was a qualified chef, Malcolm had been saddled with the cooking. All the DJs were expected to take turns on Galley Duty — washing up and cleaning the Galley after meals."

Moaning about a Motorola. The Motorola was the two way radio link between the ship and office in Tel Aviv, and Abie insisted that throughout the day there was always someone present to receive calls. It was very useful in that it provided instant relays of news from the office, but it was regarded with hate by everyone on board.

Robbie: "Abie referred to the Motorola as "the best thing that ever happened," but the fact that you had to spend two hours a day just sitting inside when there were many other things to do was very annoying. This was worsened by the fact that Crispian spent most of his time in the small lounge with the Motorola, yet he refused to do Motorola watch himself and always insisted that there was someone else there. However these problems were quite bearable, what was not was the power which the Motorola gave Abie over programmes. For example, if he heard a DJ give himself more than one name check in any particular hour he would call on the Motorola and have a good moan about it. It was for him breaking a fundamental rule of broadcasting. Through the Motorola Abie could comment and interfere in all sorts of matters, and in irrelatively uncomplicated ship-board life this was very unsettling intrusion. Schedules could change at the last moment, extra commercials were inserted with literally seconds notice, and worst of all Abie would try and tell the deejay their job."

The ban on instrumentals. Particularly in those days a deejay on a radiostation tried to use an instrumental record to fill the hour up till the news. The deejays talked about this with Abie and he had always the same story why he didn't want deejays to use instrumentals: "Abie would always tell the story of the Tel Aviv taxi driver who could not sing along unless the record had a vocal. Sounds silly, but nevertheless the rule was a firm one, strictly no instrumental records. At first, working within these rules was very taxing, but after a while I got used to it. I was always in trouble for talking too much, but still I felt that the self discipline required was very good practice. The format that applied at that time was introduced by Chris after Abie had seen a Capital Radio poster which said "All the Hits."