FIFTY years ago today the jolly team aboard the Caroline ship got a real fright when they went up on deck and found they were being ‘visited’ by the Royal Navy.
It turned out the HMS Venture was a survey ship which visited
this area annually to check local waters and make notes on Admiralty charts of any
new wrecks, piers or ships anchored off Harwich. Fans of the new radio station
were worried there might be trouble, but a Navy spokesman said the Venture
would only have made contact with Caroline to establish her long-term plans, so they could amend their charts
accordingly.
It was becoming clear that Caroline’s presence in the North
Sea was causing a tourist boom in the town of Felixstowe, where local boatmen
were setting up lucrative taxi services and taking fans out to see the Caroline
ship from close quarters.
Over April 5 and 6, the weather was changeable and very
windy and led to some breaks in transmission, but each stoppage only lasted a
few minutes. The recent gales and heavy winds caused some minor damage aboard
the ship.
When the weather improved and the first April sunshine showed
itself, thousands of sightseers in cars streamed to the coast armed with binoculars
to get a look at the ship – but for some time visibility was so good that it
could be seen with the naked eye. A number of small planes took people out to
get a bird’s-eye view. The normally quiet Felixstowe town centre had never seen
anything like it: Police said some of the visitors stayed in their cars because
of the cold wind, but many people roamed around and there were a number of
cases of children getting lost. Teenagers carrying transistor radios tuned to Caroline
filled the shopping areas for hours.
It was estimated that around 20,000 letters had been posted
by fans, intended for the DJs on board. The Ipswich Evening Star newspaper had
to appeal to readers to stop sending them letters as they couldn’t undertake to
forward them on. Youngsters captivated by Caroline were desperate to have their
requests played and tried anything to get their messages on board.
There was plenty of discussion over how the authorities were
determined to find a way of stopping Caroline. As a result, Wendy Bryce, aged 17,
and her friend Pat Cunningham, 19, both apprentice hairdressers, picketed a BBC
transmitter in their home village of Wrotham, Kent. They told reporters they
were members of the ‘Radio Caroline Defence League’ and were waving ‘Hands Off Caroline’
placards.
Some corners of the ‘establishment’ were not opposed to Caroline,
however. For example the leader writer of the East Anglian Daily Times reckoned
everyone had a sneaking admiration for the pirate radio ship and the brilliant
enterprise with which 23-year-old Irishman O’Rahilly had launched his plans. At
present there seemed little real evidence the transmissions were interfering
with vital life-saving communications, said the EADT, and Caroline had emerged
as well-prepared for the ‘cat and mouse’ game with the authorities that was
developing.
Roy Mason, the Labour MP for Barnsley South urged the Postmaster
General Reg Bevins to either jam Caroline’s signal or quickly prepare legislation
to make such stations illegal. Bevins responded that they were examining all possibilities
and hadn’t been idle. He pointed out the
big advertising associations had assured them the major advertisers would
boycott Caroline, the gramophone industry was also cooperating with the
authorities, and the Panama government had this week withdrawn the ship’s registration.
The Caroline officials laughed this off. Ronan O’Rahilly issued
a statement expressing great surprise about the alleged advertising boycott. He
said: “We are, at this moment, conducting arrangements with the leading agencies
and advertisers for the allocation of air time . . . . I cannot see Caroline doing
anyone any harm. Nobody is forced to listen, but the fact that millions are
indicates to me that, on the contrary, we are providing a service to the
public.” Sunderland South Tory MP Paul Williams was sympathetic and asked the House
of Commons “Who is Caroline harming exactly?”
The Postmaster General responded that there had been interference
caused by Caroline’s signal in the Antwerp area of Belgium, and there had been
interference involving British maritime services.
The government’s reasons for opposing Caroline were,
frankly, sounding rather vague and weak and things seemed to be going well for
the station. The record industry was supplying free records to get their artists
heard, listening figures were enormous and advertisers queuing up to buy air time.
O’Rahilly’s only immediate concern seemed to be the possibility of the signal causing
interference – something he urged his technicians to keep a close eye on.
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