The second time around

Back again to the MV Peace. My first period on the station had been very eventful and when Abe phoned me and asked me to rejoin the station, I had a little think and decided to rejoin the station for a few months. I flew out from Gatwick on June 18, 1985, with a guy called Jeremy James, also known as "J.J." He had already spent three months onboard the MV Peace directly after I left the station in the summer 1984. We arrived at 9:00 local time in the evening in our Hotel in Tel Aviv and we decided to go out into the town as we knew that there was a big chance that we would be out to the ship the following day as Abe liked the new deejays go out to the ship as soon as possible.

Abe had engaged Don Stevens and Keith York to generally give the station a better sound and a new lease of life which, with the non-interference of Abe shouting down the Motorola all the time and the presenters feeling at ease on air, had succeeded very well. The "Perry Como" at five minutes to five every afternoon had gone, so had "Sunset" and the disjointed fifteen-record format which catered for everybody and appealed for nobody. The office-staff, headed by Reuven, left the broadcasting-staff to do the job and make the station sound good and more profitable, which it had not been of late, as Abe, unfortunately, likes to do everything; create weekly formats, organise shore leave, handle the advertising, buy the food and more! Working conditions on board were going nicely and together with pleasant weather and a crazy Dutch seaman called Adrie — whom we think Abe put there just to entertain us! — life was OK. Then Abe, who apparently could not do everything he wanted to with his refugee camp sites in Ethiopia due to the Government there, decided to head back to Israel.

The sixth to go. I had been offered a job on a station in Italy so I travelled the fifty miles to Tel Aviv and told Abe. He was none too happy, as out of eight deejays he was losing six! Don, Keith and Jeremy were going to WLS in Galway, and Mark's and Grant's contracts had expired, so I made the sixth to go. Also both seamen had decided to call it a day, too, so the ship's crew numbered two jocks — Sally and Dave — a cook and a diesel engineer. Although Abe publicly stated that the VOP would be off air for the foreseeable future it was clear to us that the ship would set sail when all the repairs had been carried out and sufficient staff were aboard.

Living on the ship in a port was not a joke! It was boring, there was no booze at all so the heats get to you, and the flies won't leave you alone. I had dozens of bites in just one week so I was glad to get into Tel Aviv for a few days before leaving. Ironically Abe was already in London on July 21 preparing to interview deejays and crew for when the MV Peace was ready to go back on air again. All in all it was a good publicity stunt, and a two-week break in transmissions while cleaning jobs were being done by the staff meant that Abe did not have to find a relief captain for two weeks.

Noakes promised to call me back as soon he was in Holland again, what he did on July 4, 1985. He had been able to restore the transmitters and get them in working order again. On the Peace Ship he had met some good old friends from the past, notably Don Stevens and Keith York, who had worked there in the 1970's when Bob had made some longer spells on the ship. As Dwyers writes, just a week after Noakes had left the ship went into the harbour of Ashdod. It looked like a normal fuel and water load-up, but when preparing to leave the harbour the crew and captain were told that they were not allowed to leave as the ship was unseaworthy. It definitely looked like the end of the ship's long career. Abe, however, thought it was better to spend some money for maintenance instead of impounding the vessel forever. Before the start of the repairs, to afford payment of the shipyard's bills and to get salary costs at the lowest point, he sent all of the crew back home. The station did return on "1540" again that very same year.