UPDATED JANUARY 2025
What's new this month? Correspondent Martin Ransom has sent us two large scrapbooks of press coverage relating to the offshore stations of the sixties. We start with
some of his cuttings from 1964, including a 3 page article about life on board Radio Caroline North; we also have two more Radio Caroline album charts from 1975; and
Andy Archer has been in touch. He has found a photo of The O'Rahilly, the rebel grandfather of Caroline's founder Ronan O'Rahilly.
Just after updating the site, we heard the sad news that offshore legend Johnnie Walker had died at the age of 79 (see BBC). He had been suffering from pulmonary fibrosis. Our tribute to him is here.
And thanks to correspondent André de Raaij for letting us know that Dutch radio star Joost den Draaijer passed away on Friday 3rd January. Listeners will remember him from Radio Veronica in the sixties and the Dutch Service
of RNI between 1971 and 72. RIP.
13th January: More sad news. We have just heard that former Caroline South and Britain Radio DJ Garry Kemp died yesterday, aged 90. Our sincere condolences to his friends and family.
Just over a year ago Bob Le Roi had to give up running his excellent website after it suffered a cyber attack. We are delighted to hear that, thanks to the hard work of Chris Payne of Radio London Ltd.
and Bob himself, it is now on line again under the name Red Sands Radio. It covers all the offshore stations but is particularly strong on the
ones which broadcast from the Maunsell forts in the Thames estuary.
See the contents page and DJ Directories of the sixties, seventies and eighties for full details of this website.
If you click to follow us on our Facebook page, you will be alerted when the site is updated. At the time of writing in
late December precisely 2,500 of you have done just that. 70,585 people have visited The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame during 2024. It is gratifying that, more than half a century
since the Marine Offences Act made offshore radio illegal and more than 24 years after we launched this site, so many of you are still interested. Our grateful thanks to everyone who has contributed or supported us. We wish you all a
very HAPPY NEW YEAR.
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FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO:
23rd January 1970: Test transmissions on FM and short wave began for Radio Northsea International. Medium wave tests followed and the station opened for business in February,
broadcasting from the mv Mebo II anchored off the Dutch coast (more details here).
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Britain's first offshore radio station, Radio Caroline, began broadcasting at Easter 1964 from a ship anchored just outside UK territorial waters.
She was followed by a host of other radio stations based on boats and marine structures dotted around the coast.
These “pirates” rapidly won an enormous and enthusiastic audience.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame
has been set up to honour the stars, the broadcasters, from that golden era of music radio.
This site is a tribute to the people who endured a daily battle with the elements to provide a soundtrack to the swinging sixties.
(The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame is a British-based website. It only includes those DJs who broadcast in English and could be heard in the UK. Offshore radio also flourished in Denmark,
Sweden, Belgium, the Netherlands, Israel and New Zealand. The absence of the DJs from these countries in the Hall of Fame does not suggest that they are any less deserving, just that they are outside the scope of this site. Please
see the links page for details of websites which cover offshore radio in other parts of the world.)
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The inductees in The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame are listed alphabetically. To find your favourite voice from the sixties either select
it from the drop-down list below, search the site using the Google box or click on the appropriate page from the table of contents beneath. For broadcasters from the later decades, go to the Seventies
Supplement or Eighties Supplement. There are some that we know very little about - see the help wanted page.
THE OFFSHORE STATIONS OF THE 60s, 70s AND 80s
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We are very grateful to everyone who has contributed information, recordings or memorabilia to The
Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. We are always on the lookout for more so, if you have any items of interest, please get
in
touch.
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A number of the photos, stickers and recordings on this site are beginning to show
their age. Apologies for those that are of less than perfect quality. Many of the photographs were distributed freely by the various radio stations
and were intended for as wide a circulation as possible. Others have been donated to The Pirate Radio Hall of
Fame which are of unknown origin. Where photos have been scanned from books, newspapers or magazines, we have given credit.
However, if anybody believes that their copyright has been inadvertently infringed by the inclusion of an item on this site, please
get in touch and it will be removed immediately. Similarly, anybody who has supplied
audio for The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame has been credited but tapes get passed from collector
to collector and often there is no way of knowing who made the original recording. Our apologies to anyone who thinks their work has been used
here without due acknowledgment.
The name ‘Radio London’ and the RL logo are used by kind permission of Radio London Ltd.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame links to MP3s which can be downloaded by UK-based
customers from Amazon. As in a traditional record shop, Amazon offers multiple versions of some songs. It isn't always easy to identify precisely which
version is which. We have endeavoured to ensure that each link leads to the appropriate version of the relevant track - the one that was played by the
offshore DJs of the era - but please listen carefully before purchasing. If you discover that any of them are later re-recordings, please
let us know.
The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame participates in the Amazon Europe S.à r.l. Associates Programme, an affiliate
advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.co.uk.
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