'Excuse me sir, you can't listen to that. You're nicked!'

 

Radio Caroline's first day of broadcasting at sea in 1964  

FIFTY years ago this week you had to be very careful which radio station you chose to listen to.

 

A workman in Berners Road, Felixstowe got a nasty shock as he was repairing a house with the new offshore station Radio Caroline playing in the background on his little portable tranny.

 

A policeman apparently sidled up to him and issued a warning that it was illegal to listen to this new-fangled pirate ship and he would be reported if he continued to do so. Luckily the worker wasn’t up a ladder at the time, or he might have tumbled off in astonishment.

The incident was relayed to the local weekly paper The Felixstowe Times by a 16-year-old lad who witnessed the whole thing. The paper seized on the story – another new angle on a topic that had dominated the news in recent days – and contacted Felixstowe police.
 

A spokesman at the local nick denied any of their constables had spoken to any labourers in this way, and a spokesman for the GPO confirmed no such reports had been made to them. The latter added that although it was technically an offence under the Wireless Telegraphy Act of 1949 to listen to ‘pirate’ broadcasts, it would be difficult and unlikely that the Post Office would press charges against anyone.
 

Seemingly the authorities couldn’t attack Caroline via its listeners, so attention focussed on whether the new ship was causing any interference with its broadcasts. Vague reports abounded that there had been an adverse effect on ship-to-shore communications involving HM Coastguard and Trinity House, but the Caroline people hit back with the news that an experienced ex-BBC technician called Arthur Carrington had visited the ship and was satisfied there had been no interference with maritime wavelengths.
 

The authorities, led by Postmaster-General Reginald Bevins, weren’t giving up that easily. A report was sent to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) at Geneva and complaints made to the Panamanian government, whose flag was being flown by the Caroline ship.
 

Meanwhile Mrs Alma Perrin, the wife of a Caroline PR executive on board the ship, complained that she had attempted to get through to her husband via phone link, but was told by the GPO that ship-shore communications had been suspended because this was an illegal enterprise. It meant the ship’s only way of communicating was via its radio transmitters.
 

There was talk of a full-scale blockade being planned and it was clear the British authorities were going to make it difficult or impossible for the ship to be supplied or assisted by small boats sailing out from the nearby Essex and Suffolk coast.
 

Nevertheless, by this point Caroline had already received its first visit from a supply tender, which dumped on board NINE full sacks of mail for the DJs from delighted listeners. The people on board, unsure how their shows were being received, were astonished as they tore open the packages and found pullovers, chocolates, ski-hats and cigarettes among the many letters of good wishes and requests for records to be played.
 

The fledgling DJs got quite emotional at the sheer scale of it all and Simon Dee said later: “When we saw that lot, we knew for sure there was now no turning back!”  Fan mail was also piling up in vast amounts at Caroline’s little office in London and at its shipping agent in Church Street, Harwich.
 

Not such good news for those at sea was something else that was building up - some of the worst April weather seen for many years . . . .