• Airmyn
• Asselby
• Barlby
• Barmby on the Marsh
• Blacktoft
• Bubwith
• Carlton
• Cowick
• Drax
• Elvington
• Foggathorpe
• Gilberdyke
• Goole
• Gowdall
• Great Heck
• Hemingbrough
• Holme on Spalding Moor
• Hook
• Howden
• Kilpin
• Market Weighton
• Moorends
• Newport
• North Cave
• North Duffield
• Pocklington
• Rawcliffe
• Reedness
• Sandholme
• Seaton Ross
• Selby
• Snaith
• Spaldington
• Swinefleet
• Thorne
• Wheldrake
• Wressle

When pirates ruled the waves

I remember meeting the Minister of Posts and Telecommunications, one-time record-breaking athlete Christopher Chataway. He'd just been speaking at Snaith School and I particularly wanted to seek his views on commercial radio.

Three years earlier – in 1967 - Harold Wilson's Labour government had signed the death warrant for Britain's fleet of offshore stations by introducing the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, a deeply unpopular piece of legislation which outlawed Yorkshire's very own Radio 270 and a host of other so-called pirates. Perhaps Mr Chataway, whose Conservative Party was now in power, could offer some hope that 270, Radio London, Radio 390 and, of course, Radio Caroline would be allowed a legal return to the airwaves? But the former ITN and BBC journalist, who had won the first-ever Sports Personality of the Year award, was in a hurry for his next political engagement and an interview with the Goole Times was not on the Minister's agenda.

He managed a brief "must dash" comment – appropriate, I thought, for an Olympian who had held both the 5,000 metres and three-mile world records – before being ushered away from Snaith by two plain-clothed police officers. It was not long afterwards that the Minister, one of the most famous faces in Edward Heath's government, was busy working on proposals to introduce legalised independent local radio to Britain.

The likes of Radio Hallam in Sheffield, London's Capital Radio and a host of other commercial upstarts were eventually given the go-ahead, the first of them being launched in 1973. It was to be two decades later before the first national commercial licences were issued (for Classic FM, Virgin and Talk Radio UK, now TalkSport), but none truly resembled their offshore forefathers who had paved the way for a broadcasting revolution.

Radio 270, Radio Scotland, 'Swinging' Radio England and more than a dozen other 'pirates' had transmitted from ships and wartime forts around the British coast, 270's programmes emanating from a 139ft-long former Dutch fishing vessel called Oceaan 7 which spent its 15-month radio career anchored in international waters off Scarborough or, occasionally, Bridlington.

The station, which had cost about £60,000 to launch, was an instant hit with an estimated four million listeners, mainly along the east coast but also on the near continent and in Scandinavia, and companies ranging from garages to nightclubs were eager to pay for advertising spots. Radio 270 was a good career move for such disc jockeys as Philip Hayton, who was later to become one of the BBC's top television news anchormen, and Paul Burnett, who would one day find greater fame with Radio Luxembourg, Radio 1 and, of course, Top of the Pops.

Radio 270's principal backers were a group of Yorkshire business executives led by Don Robinson – who later went on to become chairman of Hull City - and supermarket entrepreneur Wilf Proudfoot. Their venture, in common with all the other 1960's 'pirates' except Caroline, was to be silenced in a storm of controversy.

Opposition to the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act was immense. There were public rallies around the country, petitions and speeches in parliament, but it was all to no avail. The offshore operators had enjoyed as long as three years afloat and, despite the weight of public opinion against them, MPs decided that enough was enough.

Ronan O'Rahilly, the mercurial, Irish founder of the two most famous stations, Caroline North and Caroline South, knew what he thought of the British establishment. He announced that his ventures would continue broadcasting after the legislation came into effect on August 14th, 1967, and, true to his word, 'The Lady' lived on until mounting debts forced the closure of the entire operation the following year. Caroline would later return to the airwaves, initially from the North Sea and later via the internet and satellite, but the other 'pirates' have never re-surfaced in their original form.

Radio 270 closed down to the sounds of Land of Hope and Glory and, ironically, the National Anthem. Most of the other stations had pulled the plug in the previous few weeks and months, although Radio London undoubtedly had the largest audience share when its final hour began at 2pm on August 14.

I remember that show as though it was yesterday. One of the station's best voices, presenter Paul Kaye, who had also opened the first programme on Radio London when it started in 1964, brought tears to millions of eyes when he spoke those momentous words: "Big L time is 3 o'clock and Radio London is now closing down."

Paul later became well known as a continuity announcer on Yorkshire Television and as a presenter of jazz shows on independent local radio in the West Riding and north-east of England. He died in 1980.

"The days of offshore radio were marvellous while they lasted," Don Robinson told me. Radio 270 was with us for less than two years, but it built up a massive and loyal audience in the United Kingdom and abroad. I sometimes listen to the old recordings and, I have to say, they bring a lump to the throat.

"Before the era of offshore broadcasting, very little pop music was to be heard on the radio in Britain, but 270 and the other stations revolutionised it all. They led directly to the setting up of Radio 1 and the scores of other local, regional and national stations that we have today."

Ten things you probably didn't know about the world of "pirate" radio:

l Radio 270 should have started broadcasting on April 1st, 1966, but its opening transmissions were delayed by technical problems – and bad weather – until two months later.

l The Marine Broadcasting Offences Act closed down most of the offshore stations in 1967, but it didn't deter everyone. Two of the most successful 'pirates' of all time, Radio North Sea International and Laser 558, broadcast from ships in the following two decades.

l Many former offshore disc jockeys are now a 'fixture' of BBC and independent local radio stations. Chris Arundel, Radio Humberside's Bridlington reporter, used to work on the Voice of Peace anchored off the Israeli coast. Radio York's Jerry Scott, meanwhile, is a veteran of Radio Caroline.

l Not all unlicensed stations in the 1960s and 1970s operated from outside Britain's territorial waters. Pupils of Goole Grammar School once built a low-powered medium-wave transmitter whose signals could be heard as far afield as Swinefleet and Bubwith. The perpetrators were never caught.

l Radio Caroline's most famous vessel, Mi Amigo, sank in 1980, but its name lives on. A bungalow in Holme-on-Spalding Moor is called Mi Amigo, while one in Reedness is named Laissez Faire after a ship that hosted two stations, 'Swinging' Radio England and Britain Radio.

l A letter addressed to Radio 270 in October, 1966, and popped into a post box in Foggathorpe, near Holme-on-Spalding Moor, claimed that a limpet mine had been attached to its ship, the Oceaan 7. But the crew found nothing suspicious.

l Comedy actor and writer John Junkin, who had family connections in the Goole area, was one of Radio Caroline's first-ever disc jockeys, although he never actually broadcast live from the North Sea. John, who died last year, recorded a number of early Caroline shows at a London studio.

l Radio Caroline's last broadcasting vessel, the former Grimsby trawler Ross Revenge, is presently being preserved as a floating museum devoted to the offshore era. A team of loyal volunteers is working on the ship at its private mooring in Essex.

l An offshore-radio supporter embarrassed 'Auntie' in the early 1970s by ringing BBC Radio Humberside's 'Swap Shop' programme and telling the flummoxed presenter that he would "like to swap your station for Radio North Sea International". He was promptly cut off!

l The Goole-based Boothferry District Citizens' Advice Bureau was mentioned on Radio Caroline last year. One of the CAB volunteers e-mailed the station asking for a dedication - and, unlike the 1960s when letters to Caroline often took weeks to arrive, modern technology meant that his record request was on the air within 15 minutes. Progress!

Published on 9th August 2007 in News.

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