UPDATED JUNE 2025
New this month: We continue leafing through Martin Ransom's scrap-books of old press cuttings and reach June 1966 and the raid on Radio City;
we have another fascinating cutting from Merbie, this one from March 1970 when the London Evening News visited Radio Northsea International which had just arrived off the British coast;
from a couple of years later, we have the RNI Prediction Hit 40 chart of 20th May 1972; and we hear from Radio Caroline DJ of the late 80s Max Buchanan.
Former Caroline and RNI disc-jockey Andy Archer has written a book - about cricket. David Walker: Norfolk's Master Batsman is credited to Andy Dawson,
his real name, and is available now from The Association of Cricket Statisticians and Historians.
Check out the Offshore Radio Replay page, where you can listen to a wide variety of interesting recordings from the offshore radio era. The material
comes from the archives of Martin van der Ven and Hans Knot. About 2 shows are added each week. At the time of writing there are 43 available, including some studio recordings.
We were sad to hear of the death of John Lait on 1st May. In 1965 John was working for Christy Electrical of Ipswich, a company which was hired by Radio London to carry out some work on board their ship, mv Galaxy. John was one of
the engineers sent out there and, many years later - in 2007 - kindly shared some of his photos with us. Our condolences to his family and friends, and thanks to Brian Nichols for passing on the news of
John's passing.
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 Facebook, you will be alerted when the site is updated.
|
FIFTY-FIVE YEARS AGO:
13th June 1970: Radio Northsea International changed its name to Radio Caroline International.
19th June: The station changed back to being Radio Northsea International (more details here).
|
THIRTY-FIVE YEARS AGO:
25th June 1990: With London station Spectrum Radio now on the same frequency, Radio Caroline suspended broadcasting from mv Ross Revenge.
|
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.)
|
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
|
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.
|
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. If you buy anything from an Amazon link on
this website, we earn commission.
|
|
