'Flash those car headlights when you hear the music!'

Gerry Duncan opens the Caroline Coffee Bar in Felixstowe.

JULY 1964:  FIFTY YEARS AGO

WINSTON Churchill retired from the House of Commons at the age of 89, builders finished work on the new Post Office Tower in London, and the Beatles' first film A Hard Day’s Night hit the nation’s cinema screens.

The soundtrack to all this, and more, was being provided by Radio Caroline, by now so successful it had split into two: Caroline North, broadcasting from the MV Fredericia anchored off the Isle of Man and Caroline South, on board the MV Mi Amigo off Frinton-on-Sea.

In early July 1964 the Fredericia left its previous resting place off Felixstowe, bound for its new home and broadcasting the current chart hits as it went. As it passed the Cornish coast one of the DJs mentioned on air they’d been out of touch with news from the mainland for several days now, and bemoaned the absence of newspapers on board. Padstow pleasure boat proprietor John England heard this, collected a dozen Sunday papers from his local shop and set off in his speedboat Sea Fury. He met the ship about five miles offshore and threw the papers to the grateful crew. The station immediately played Petula Clark’s song ‘Thank You’ in return for the kind deed.

The ship, with Captain Hangerfelt at the helm, played requests for locals as it passed the Irish and Welsh coasts and as it approached the Isle of Man one of the DJs appealed for islanders to flash their car headlights out to sea that evening if they could hear the signal. The ship dropped anchor on Bahama Bank, a few miles off Ramsey, and the flickering lights in the distance gave them the news they wanted - they could be heard loud and clear!

So loud, in fact, there were soon complaints from the 100 per cent legal Manx Radio, who reckoned their audience and revenue was being stolen. Manx said if the Government wouldn’t curtail Caroline, they could at least allocate Manx a comparable wavelength of similar power so that competition would be fair.  One man who could vouch for the sheer power of the Caroline North signal was the Dutch crew member who walked too close to the ship’s huge antenna. He received a nasty 10,000 volts charge that not only badly shocked him, but gave him a radical haircut involving a three-inch bald strip from forehead to the back of his neck!

Back down south, despite the disappearance of their ‘local’ ship, the good folk of Felixstowe turned out in big numbers to witness the opening of the Caroline Coffee Bar, a trendy dive at 35 Beach Station Road on the corner of Langer Road. It was the former home of the Felix Restaurant, and not far from Jaysmith’s chip shop and the Dolphin Hotel.

Dressed in a smart suit and posing for cameramen with a bottle of Coke, Caroline’s Gerry Duncan signed autographs and declared the coffee bar open. There was some disappointment in the air as heart-throb DJ Simon Dee had originally been scheduled to appear, and his replacement Duncan was more of a producer than a glamorous DJ. But Duncan was nevertheless a talented fellow, having been responsible for Caroline's famous Sound of the Nation jingles package and who had previously worked behind the scenes on major feature films Light Up The Sky and Sink The Bismark.

Mr Howe of Shotley could listen
to Radio Caroline on his phone!

Caroline’s popularity was burgeoning and the launch of ‘Caroline Club’ was a huge success. The mail it generated, including record requests, would peak at around 20,000 items per week. A club broadcast was made on USA radio station CKLW and generated a rush of membership applications from across the Atlantic. It cost five shillings to join, and you received a smart membership card, big brochure about the station plus news updates and adverts for merchandise. Problems at the Royal Mail in mid-July hit many British businesses and caused one Caroline Club programme to be cancelled because all the raw material for the show was sitting among the piles of mail backed up in sorting offices.

This was no problem for Braintree schoolboy Martin Finning and his pal Ken Cook of Dovercourt. The two teenagers reckoned writing and posting a record request to Caroline was a ‘square’ thing to do, so decided instead to paddle out to the ship and hand it over in person. They set off in a two-seat kayak and located the South ship about three miles off Frinton, but the strong current meant they had to paddle the equivalent of five miles to reach it. Told they could not come aboard because of rules and regulations, they shouted their record requests to DJ Simon Dee up on the deck, and within minutes he’d played On The Beach by Cliff Richard for them. They listened on their little transistor radio, and with mission accomplished turned tail and paddled back to shore. The whole thing took nearly four hours but they were delighted.

Not quite so happy with the station was Mr.R.Howe of Shotley, who told the local papers in July 1964 that whenever he picked up his phone to make a call he could heard Caroline in the background. Post Office engineers were mystified and promised an investigation.