28. THE WRITING IS ON THE WALL FOR THE PIRATES

Already in late 1966 the writing was on the wall for the radio stations off Britain's coast. The government of Harold Wilson, egged on by Post Master General Tony Ben, was determined to bring in legislation to make it illegal for British citizens or companies to supply the pirates, work for them or advertise on the stations.

On January 1^st 1967 there was a bit of good news for a change. As announced earlier by Caroline on New Year's Eve, Radio 390 returned to the airwaves. I remember, the next day, writing a letter to Prince Charles protesting against the British government's actions to sink the pirates.. “Why not”, I thought “the crown prince is a paid-up member of the Big L club and has a Radio London T-shirt...” After a few months I got a reply from the Home Office with the usual lies.

The imminent demise of the offshore stations was not the only problem at the time. I also had to try and commit professor Hesman's German “Kulturgeschichte” to memory. I found that this was best done with the deep brown voice of Jim Reeves in the background. Luckily both Radio 390 and Radio 355 (former Britain Radio) now had a Jim Reeves Show on Sundays. The reason being that after a boardroom battle station manager Ted Allbeury left 390 and went on to run Radio 355, taking most of his middle-of-the-road programming ideas with him and some of the dj's. Theodore Edward le Bouthillier (Ted) Allbeury (1917-2005) had been a real-life spy during the Second World War, decades before he got involved with radio and then started writing best-selling novels.

Not only Britain Radio had changed name... As it proved unsuccessful Swinging Radio England went Dutch and turned into easy going Radio Dolfijn and still later into Radio 227. It was hard to keep up with the changes. Later more upset as one by one the fort based stations fell by the wayside and my exams doomed...

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16. LORD OF THE AIRWAVES

Even in Belgium hardly a day went by or newspapers were reporting on the rapidly expanding British offshore scene. On my 17th birthday the Flemish newspaper ‘Het Volk’ announced that Screaming Lord Sutch was all set to start broadcasting from the fishing trawler Cornucopia in the Thames Estuary. The next day, Saturday May 27th 1964, I managed to pick up Radio Sutch, which was calling itself ‘Britain’s first teenage radio station’. The new pirate was only on the air for a couple of hours in a row. Also, the station started very late in the morning. Not knowing any better at the time I thought that the dj’s were plain lazy and overslept or maybe had wild all night parties and were subsequently suffering from a collective hangover. This proved not to be the reason for the late start however. Later I learnt that the transmitter was battery operated, hence the rather flexible broadcasting times. 

The signal, on an announced 197m (next to Caroline), was fairly weak. Especially in early evening the green tuning eye on the Saba radio at home started winking erratically as interference from other stations moved in. It also soon proved that the crew of motley minions around David Sutch were in fact broadcasting from one of the derelict towers of Shivering Sands Fort off Whitstable in Kent. As a result it was the first offshore buccaneer to take up residence on one of the wartime anti-aircraft sea forts off the British coast. They had been designed by Irish-born Robert Maunsell and the last one was abandoned by the Navy in 1958. 

In the early 60’s Screaming Lord Sutch was known for his horror-themed stage show, dressing as Jack the Ripper. From the start Sutch was of course plugging his own records on the station. In fact I remember being quite taken by ‘Dracula’s Daughter’ and ‘The Monster Man’.  When I listen to the songs now, I can only conclude that there must have been something wrong with me at the time. There probably still is.

In the 60’s David (Screaming Lord) Sutch also started to dabble in politics of sorts. In the General Election on October 15th 1964 he stood in Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Lancashire constituency. He managed to amass 518 votes.  Years later (in 1977) I briefly met Lord Sutch when he appeared with his group the Savages at ‘Flashback ’67’, the convention held at London Heathrow commemorating 10 years of Marine Broadcasting Offences Act.   

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