When pirates ruled the airwaves!

Sound Of The 60s

In 1964, Britain was at the centre of the music world.

The Beatles were invading America and the Rolling Stones were chasing them up the charts, followed by the Animals and Cilla Black.

London was swinging, but on Britain’s only official radio station, the BBC, Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby still ruled the playlist.

To hear the latest sounds, music fans had to tune in to Radio Luxembourg broadcast from across the Channel – but they could only pick it up at night, and the signal varied with the weather.

That all changed on March 28, 1964, when Radio Caroline began broadcasting non-stop pop from a ship anchored in international waters off the Essex coast.

The first record it aired was the Rolling Stones’ Not Fade Away – a dig at Luxembourg’s reception, which often did fade away.

Caroline soon had 25 million listeners, around half the nation.

The Government eventually shut the “pirate” broadcaster down and in 1967 the BBC launched Radio One.

It copied Caroline’s format and recruited many of its DJs, including Tony Blackburn and Johnnie Walker. The pirates had shown the way.

Pirate Tony

Tony Blackburn was just 21, the youngest DJ in the country, when he began his career on Radio Caroline.

The Thames estuary was so rough that DJs slept strapped to their bunks.

In 1965, Tony was onboard when the ship lost its anchor and was swept aground on Frinton beach. He was transferred to a substitute boat… and that one sank!

His most perilous moment of all was scaling a 55m (180ft) mast to repair the transmitter in a storm.

Radio Luxembourg

Pirate radio was invented by Conservative MP Leonard Plugge in 1931.

To break the BBC’s state-granted monopoly of the airwaves, he set up Radio Normandy, broadcasting popular music and adverts to England from the French coastal town of Fécamp.

It’s thought the term “to plug”, to promote a record, was taken from his name.

The station soon had more listeners than the BBC. Presenter Roy Plomley went on