Reginald Calvert: a life for pop music

• Susan K. Moore (2017), Life and death of a pirate. (474 pages; richly illustrated; hard cover; ISBN 978-0-9515116-6-4.) Fillongley: Fillongley Publications

A life in three parts.It was in 2014 that the first part of the trilogy 'Life and death of a pirate' was published. Now, over three years later, the two following parts, bound together in a beautiful binding lay on my desk to be reviewed. It's a book about the personal life of Reginald Calvert and his family, the life in the music industry and also to mention his involvement in the offshore broadcasting world in the first half of the sixties of the last century. Susan Moore is the daughter of the late Reginald and Dorothy Calvert and has written the book as a novel with the true and sad story in it. Reginald was a person who had numerous professions, from candy shopkeeper, radio and television mechanic, running ballroom dances, managing many pop groups and running a radio station this until the moment he became the victim of competition.

Often, Reginald was bored quickly in his way of working and he picked up something new ideas to work out again, after which his wife was allowed to clear the chunks. Susan does not shy away from anything in the book. She talks about the rather dominant attitude of a man who actually didn't give his wife space. As an example, let me mention the fact that Dorothy was in the best position for the family and wanted a better home. There was no talk about it. In his married years Reginald appears to have had various relationships that he was able to protect very well until after a relationship of more than 3 years with the singer Carol, he had to expose himself with the buttocks as he could no longer conceal it against his wife Dorothy. It meant a separated life for a number of weeks, but he was taken in grace again.

A radio station in the Thames Estuary. The second part of the book — the final part of the trilogy — covers Calvert's involvement with offshore radio. Inevitable it seems, as during the youth quake of the sixties offshore radio and pop music seem to melt together to form a new media phenomenon. For example, on 21 March 1964, the day before Eastern, a private club was opened in Loughborough in a former cinema, and it seemed that the financial situation of the Calvert's could go in the right direction. In addition, a song by The Fortunes was suddenly played intensively by a new radio station, Radio Caroline. Reginald, who had always dreamed of being able to start his own radio station, was warned several times by Dorothy that they had no money for it, but Reginald went, as so often, his own way to have his wife and business partner clean up the mess later. He had found a buddy friend in one of his artists, David Sutch, with whom he spent many hours talking about the topic of Pirate Radio and, despite the warnings of Dorothy, continued his own will and devised a stunt together with David Sutch that led to a lot of publicity and, above all, a radio station with lots of music by David Sutch and The Savages.