About Me

I was a child of the 60's

I would say that my journey through the 1960s began through my older brother and sister, who were 12 and 6 years respectively older than me.

Big hit records of 1960 by Adam Faith, The Everley Brothers, Lonnie Donegan and Roy Orbison were brought home to infect my 10 year old ears.

From then on it was the BBC's Pick Of The Pops with David Jacobs and the early U.K. Top 20 best-selling records of that week broadcast every Sunday at 4pm preceded by Juke Box Jury on a Saturday night at 6pm

Other than that the only other music choice this 10 year old knew about would have been the BBC's Saturday Club with Brian Matthew.

It was 1962 and the purchase of a Perdio six transistor radio that was a game changer for me.

That radio cost £6.19.11. and considering the average wage in 1960 was about £14.00 represented a considerable sum to yours truly

Now I did not have to be restricted to the pitiful pop music offerings from the BBC.

Because just like thousands of music mad kids in the U.K I had access to Radio Luxembourg who nightly from 6pm broadcasted pre-recorded shows made in London but broadcast on 208 in the medium wave from Luxembourg.

Now I could listen to the top 20 presented by Barry Alldis under the bed sheets on a Sunday night until midnight.

And like thousands of listeners young and old we would be frustrated by the constant fading signal which would seemingly always disappear for about 30 or more seconds just as a good bit of a song was reached.

And so it was that in 1964 yours truly was excited to read in the newspaper that a pirate radio ship called Radio Caroline was to broadcast pop music from outside British territorial waters off of Felixstowe, Suffolk.

And on Good Friday March 27th 1964 I was on Sheerness sea front on the Isle Of Sheppey where I grew up, excitedly listening to the very first test broadcast from Radio Caroline on that little Perdio six transistor radio.

Radio Caroline began broadcasting from 6am to 6pm on Easter Sunday 29th March 1964 from the ship MV Caroline, named after owner Ronan O'Reilly's wife.

The very first record broadcast on Radio Caroline at 6am on that Easter Saturday was Not Fade Away by the Rolling Stones, and it was jointly presented by DJ's Chris Moore and Simon Dee.

Radio Caroline was soon followed by Radio London, and a host of other copycat stations. Radio City, owned by pop singer Screaming Lord Sutch, managed to occupy wartime forts sited off the coast of Kent in the Thames Estuary.

It was the pirate radio stations that would change the face of British pop music broadcasting forever.

There must have been an explosion in transistor radio sales from 1964 as it seemed as if every other teenager was carrying a radio as they walked along Sheerness sea front, so I would assume that must have also happened nationwide because at its peak Radio Caroline attracted 22 million listeners and Radio London an estimated 10-15 million listeners.

I will always remember the Dusty Springfield record "I just don't know what to do with myself," because like lots of other teenagers I took my transistor to school to listen to at break times and on one particular lunch break a nasty master confiscated my radio because I had not switched it off after he blew his whistle because I was loving that song so much.

I was heartbroken but only for a couple of hours because when the school day ended I waited till I saw him leave in his car and went into his classroom and into his desk draw and confiscated my radio back to me its rightful owner and I never heard another word from him about it because he was a drunk and a local publican owner as well and probably could not remember.