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I remember that while we lived in the Station Masters House it was broken into but
strangely the house was all locked up at the time and the person gained entry through the rear room window by sliding a blade of some description between the top and bottom windows and sliding the catch over and
then lifting the bottom half of the window up and gain entry. I don't remember anything beingn stolen at the time.
‘Pirates and Foreigners’
As I grew up my childhood listening pleasure was via the radio. Most of these
programs were broadcast by the BBC. When I got older I was able to obtain my own transistor radio.
This was when I found that there were the odd foreign station that broadcast in English or the songs were english and the commentary in their own language. The exception to this was Radio Luxembourg that if my memory is correct started about 7pm and broadcast till around midnight and then closed down till the next night. The station played pop music in English with English or DJs that spoke it. There was only one problem and that the station would fade in and out. This meant at times you could start listening to one record and hear the end of the next. If you were lucky and owned a record player and afford the records you could take a break from the radio and listen to them instead.
Then in 1964 came a revolution in the way the programmes and type of music was presented. The era of Off shore or Pirate Radio ( free radio ) was with us and because of this radio has never been the same
since. Stations were set up around England on the old military forts at sea near to the mouth of the Thames and on ships specially converted into floating stations who went under various names. This caused great
concern with the government of the time and also the BBC who lost large numbers of their listeners overnight to these `Pirate Stations` as they played the music of the day and that was what the young generations
wanted to listen to.
As these ships were anchored outside territorial waters ( 3 miles from the coast ) they were out of the jurisdiction of the law but this soon changed as an Act was passed and this made
them illegal and in August 1967 the stations shut down one by one until this left only one station, still on the airwaves broadcasting - “Radio Caroline.”
This was the station that started it all back in 1964
and was the brain child of a young Irish Entrepreneur Ronan O`Rahilly. The station has been off the air a number of times some were long and others short. Once was due to the ship ( Mi Amigo ) sinking but they came
back. Their last ship an ex Grimsby trawler, The Ross Revenge still proudly displays the name Caroline the station name and is the last Radio Ship of her kind and is being slowly restored to her former glory.
Broadcasts have been made from her under special licence but this is from moorings around the Thames as the ship is not allowed to put out to sea again. I am still able to listen to Radio Caroline on my PC as can
others. With a sky satellite system Radio Caroline can be received on it once tuned in, and in parts of Ireland the station is on cable. The programmes now are broadcast from land based studios in Maidstone Kent
with many of the DJs having previously worked on one of the Caroline Ships or other Off Shore Stations. A point to note is that their services are voluntary and their wages are just the knowledge that they are
keeping the name and heritage of Radio Caroline alive.
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