In May 2022 Ray Clark gave a talk on the history of offshore radio. One of the people attending the talk, Derek Cockerill, remembered taking a trip out to visit the mv Mi Amigo and mv Galaxy, the homes of
Radio Caroline South and Radio London, back in the sixties. He later kindly sent his photos to Ray and gave his permission for them to be forwarded to The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. Our thanks to both Derek
and Ray.
Derek wrote: “Please find attached the photographs you asked me to send to you. I took them when I was in my mid-teens which dates them to about 1965 to 1967. I was camping somewhere around Clacton/Walton and took a ride out
on one of the pleasure-trip boats which went out for a trip around the ‘pirates’. I don't know the identity of the people shown on the boats who were presumably a mixture of DJs, back-room operators and crew.”
Radio London's ship, mv Galaxy.
Left to right on the deck of the Galaxy: Keith Skues, Chris Denning, Mitch the steward and Paul Kaye. Keith
joined Radio London in May 1966 and Chris left in August that year so Derek's trip must date from the summer of 1966.
A blurry shot of Radio London.
Caroline South's ship, the mv Mi Amigo.
Some of the Caroline South team. The person third from the left in the group standing along the side of the ship, with his arms crossed, is engineer Carl Thomson. We
asked him for his help identifying the others. See below.
A closer look at the Caroline South team. The man standing behind, raising his hand to shade his eyes, is Tom Lodge. We thought that the guy in dark glasses, in front of Tom,
might be Mike Ahern and that has been confirmed by Carl. He also says: “to my left is Tony Visscher, the ship's engineer; Gus the cook in the doorway then two Dutch
crew-members. Then another Gus who was the mechanic working with Tony Visscher.” Can anyone identify the person on the far left?
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