|
|
![]() |
Louise Quirk A presenter on Manx Radio, Louise met
Don Allen while he was working for the station. Later, when Don became Programme Director of
Radio Northsea International, he asked Louise to provided some recorded links which could be mixed with music on the ship
and transmitted in the middle of the night. Louise never visited the mv Mebo II but her Skyline shows were broadcast on
RNI, 4am-6am daily, from January 1974 until the station closed down in August that year. She is the second cousin of
Chris Payne of the Radio London web site. Louise now lives in Cyprus
where she runs The Bay Tree restaurant in Limassol with her husband Harry Kewin. (Photo from Offshore
Echos magazine.)
James Rafferty An engineer on the mv.Jeanine, he broadcast on
Radio Atlantis on the night of 15th February 1974 and occasionally thereafter. Present whereabouts unknown. (Photo,
right, courtesy of Steve England.)
Philip Randall We don't know anything about Philip except that he was heard on Radio Seagull from 26th August to 7th September 1973. Can anyone provide more information?

Charlotte Ribbelink 18 year old Charlotte ran Caroline's
office in The Hague after Kate and Chris Cary left the station and, on 13th January 1974,
she co-hosted a one hour show on Radio Seagull with fellow office worker René van de Snoek. (Photo, left,
from the Radio Caroline Picture Souvenir Book published by MRP Books.)
Brian Richards An American, he was heard on Radio Caroline from
3rd to 24th August 1976 before returning to the United States. He had plans to continue his involvement with the station by
sending a daily one hour taped show from America but this never came to fruition. Can anyone provide
more information about Brian?
Nick Richards From Rayleigh, Essex, Nick was first heard on
Radio Caroline on 9th September 1979 and then regularly from the beginning of November. He was one of the disc-jockeys
who were rescued by lifeboat when the mv Mi Amigo sank in March 1980 although he was not heard on that historic final
broadcast because he was busy at the time blowing down a dirty old pipe in the engine room, trying to get a pump
going. After working as a security guard, he moved to Ireland and South Coast Radio. A spell of illness forced him
home and in January 1985 he rejoined Caroline, on its new ship the Ross Revenge. After nearly a year with Caroline, he
returned to Ireland to station WBEN in Cork. He currently presents the Breakfast show on Cork's
96 FM. (Photo from Monitor Magazine.)
Rick Rock American cook/deckhand on the mv Jeanine, he
broadcast occasionally on Radio Atlantis during 1974. Can anyone provide
more information? (Photo of Rick painting the side of the ship courtesy of Steve
England.)
Dave Rogers joined Radio Northsea International in September 1970
at the age of 23. Unfortunately the station closed down just six days later. Hailing from Devon, he had previously operated
a mobile disco business and been involved with a land-based pirate station, Radio Lundy, using the name Dave Walker.
Dave had also worked for the Rank Organisation as an assistant cinema manager. When RNI resumed broadcasting in February
1971, he returned to the station, becoming senior DJ in August of that year. In February 1972 he left after falling out
with a new Programme Director but he returned in August when that PD left. However, just a couple of months later, a
dispute arose between the Swiss owners of the station and the Dutch company which operated the daytime service. This
resulted in all the English-language DJs being sacked, including Dave. He worked in non-radio jobs for a while
and was working in a factory making bath salts when he received a call offering him a show on Radio Atlantis. He joined that
station in March 1974 and stayed with them until the closedown in August. He was later heard on a number of ILR stations
across the UK including Radio City, Radio Orwell and Essex Radio using the name Keith Rogers. We asked Dave / Keith to
bring us up to date. He replied: I have been working for Southend Borough Council as a Foreshore Inspector, the
duties for which include driving the train down the longest pier in the world!! Also the hardened anoraks might
want to know that I have reverted to my real name Keith Chanter and have become seriously involved with acting. If you
Google Keith Chanter, actor up I pop. (Photo, taken on Radio Atlantis, courtesy of Steve England.
There is a more recent photo, taken in 2008, on this page. Our thanks to Keith for his help.)
James Ross was first heard on Radio Caroline using the name
Kelvin Carter. Formerly a land-based pirate, he had worked alongside other Caroline DJs
Don Stevens and Steve Kent on the London pirate Radio Dynamite. He joined Caroline in
June 1975. After a brush with the law he decided to change his on-air name and, on 26th November, he returned as
James Ross, and became one of the regular voices on the station for the next few years
(apart from a few months in 1976 when he left for a stint on the Voice of Peace, off the coast of Israel). After
leaving Caroline in March 1978, he worked as a lorry driver before joining the AA Traffic Unit, presenting traffic
bulletins on LBC and BBC Radio London. In 1983 he left the AA to freelance on Chiltern Radio, LBC, Capital and BFBS among
others before moving to Sky News. He is currently a senior producer for Sky News. In 2008 he reported for Sky on his time
with Radio Caroline (see here). James attended the Radio Caroline 45th birthday reunion and is pictured here.
(Photo kindly provided by Johnny Lewis's Rounds And Sounds web site.)
Mike Ross Born 17th March 1947 in Chiswick, London, Mike was working
as a disco DJ before joining Radio Northsea International on 7th September 1970. He took over the 6-9pm show but the
station closed down only a few weeks later. He returned to England and club work but on 6th May 1971 was back on the
re-started RNI. As well as a DJ, Mike was also an engineer and, in January 1972, after falling out with a new Programme
Director, he gave up DJ-ing to concentrate on the technical side just presenting the occasional show. During that summer
he returned to full-time broadcasting and, following his marriage to Sheila in late 1972, the two of them ran the popular
Sunday evening Hitback Show. Mike achieved a certain notoriety in the free radio world as The Toad,
a nickname invented by Andy Archer. Mike left Northsea on 31st January 1974 (despite
Radio Seagull's Save the Toad campaign!). He had been Northsea's longest-serving DJ.
Mike later worked in nightclubs, for the Ministry of Defence and for Texas Instruments before buying a hotel in Great
Yarmouth. We are not sure where he is now. Mike, please get
in touch and bring us up to date. There is an interview with him here. (Photo from Deejay & Radio Monthly magazine.)
Sheila Ross Mike Ross's wife, they jointly presented the weekly
Hitback Show on RNI.
Stuart Russell One of the mainstays of Radio Caroline over many
years, Stuart joined the station in May 1976, straight from school, just as the daytime 192 metre service was starting. His
was a regular voice over the next two years and he, together with Roger Mathews, set a
record by working on board for a continuous thirteen weeks and six days (from October 1977 to February 1978).
Stuart left the ship in October 1978 but continued to work for Caroline on land and, during the summer of 1979, appeared
on Caroline Roadshow gigs in the Benelux. On 11th August 1979 he returned to the ship. His last show from the mv Mi Amigo
was broadcast in the Dutch Service on 31st January 1980 but he continued to work on the organisational side ashore. After
the Mi Amigo sank he was involved in a couple of unsuccessful attempts to launch new offshore ventures - Radio Phoenix
and Radio Paradise - but instead his return to the air came when Radio Caroline resumed broadcasting from a new ship,
the Ross Revenge. Stuart was heard during June/July 1984. Three years later, in October 1987, he returned to the
station under a new name, Nigel Harris. He can currently be heard on
KMFM
in Kent and broadcasts a weekly show on the satellite incarnation of Caroline. At the Amsterdam Radio Day in 2009, he was
presented with an award by Radio Caroline as a mark of appreciation of his 33 years of loyal service to the station
(see photos). That same year he published a book about his offshore career,
Ships In Troubled Waters,
under his Nigel Harris name. The photo, left, is from his book.
