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Robb Eden From Hampstead, London, Robb joined Radio Northsea
International on 7th August 1970, aged 18. He initially only stayed until the end of the month. He was waiting to rejoin
the station when it closed down in September. A year later, with RNI now back in action, Robb returned, having in the
meantime been working in a London club. He was fired from RNI on 23rd August 1972, after an incident in which some
300 Dutch records were thrown over the side of the ship! He did return to the air on 30th November but only broadcast
occasionally, as he was mainly employed as the station's UK representative. From late 1973 he presented a weekly
pre-recorded show of rock music on Sunday nights, The Contemporary Music Programme. In April 1974 he moved
from RNI to Caroline, presenting his first show on 3rd May. Again he mainly acted as UK rep and only presented the
occasional show. In August 1974 he left Caroline to join Liverpool's Radio City and the following September moved to
Capitol Records. A year later he was seconded to EMI Europe where he was instrumental in developing synchronised release
for EMI product throughout Europe. He also managed a couple of Dutch rock bands. For a while he was UK representative
for the Israeli offshore station, the Voice of Peace and, in 1977, started the Caroline Roadshow, a very successful heavy
rock disco. He was production manager on BRMB Radio and Chiltern Radio and worked as a consultant on a number of projects
for the Virgin Group including Music Box, Virgin Atlantic Airways and Virgin Radio. He was also involved with Chris Cary
(alias Spangles Muldoon) in his short-lived Radio Nova International
satellite station. In 1999 he started a campaign to persuade the BBC to play more unsigned music. This led, in 2001, to
the launch of his website www.jacobsladder.org.uk and, more
recently, a decision to promote unsigned music through the growing network of community radio stations. Many of the acts
he has worked with can be heard at www.northcotswoldonline.com.
He also works in charity fund-raising. Robb attended Radio Caroline's fortieth birthday party in March 2004.
There is a picture here. There are also pictures of him at the 2005 Radio
Day in Amsterdam. (With many thanks to Robb for his help with the above. The photo is from an issue of
Wavelength magazine.)
Nigel Elgin broadcast on Caroline from 30th July to 6th September
1975. He tried to inject some scripted humour into his presentation which was somewhat at odds with the more naturalistic
style of the other DJs, which might have been why he was only there for just one stint. We have no information about him
- and would welcome some. If you can help, please
get
in touch.
Chris Elliott joined Radio Caroline on 9th January 1976. He left
on 4th April, having celebrated his 23rd birthday while on board, on 26th.March. We do not know much about him except
that he later worked on the London community station, Radio Thamesmead. If you can add to this meagre biographical entry,
please email
us. He is not the Chris Elliot who wrote The Wonderful Radio London Story.
Debbie England Husband and wife team, Steve and Debbie England
had previosuly run a mobile disco business together. They joined Radio Caroline in December 1972, Debbie as cook and
occasional DJ, Steve as full-time broadcaster. They left Caroline when it closed temporarily in June 1973 and, the
following February, signed up with Radio Atlantis. Debbie again broadcast occasionally. They stayed until the station
closed down in August 1974. (This photo by Steve England, kindly supplied by Chris Edwards of Offshore
Echos magazine.)

Steve England and his first wife Debbie
had run the Zap mobile disco business in Deal, Kent, before joining Radio Caroline in December 1972. They left Caroline
when it closed down temporarily in June 1973. They returned in October, although this time Steve was based on land helping
create the Mi Amigo jingles and working as a studio engineer recording taped shows. He wasn't happy with some of the
internal politics of the Caroline organisation and quit after three weeks. The couple returned to the UK. In early 1974
Steve joined Radio Atlantis and, in February, was appointed Programme Director of the English-language International
Service. Despite suffering from low transmitter power and limited resources, Atlantis proved very popular with those who
could receive it. However it only lasted until August 1974, closing when the Dutch introduced their anti-pirate legislation.
Steve then joined Piccadilly Radio in Manchester and soon became Commercial Production Manager. He later set up his own
company, Alfasound, to record radio jingles and commercials. After eighteen years a dispute with his partners led to its
closure in 1998. He now runs the audio production company S2blue
with his son Simon. Steve does voice-over work, produces radio commercials and jingles, and is the UK & Eire
representative for JAM Creative Productions and PAMS Productions Inc. More details are available from
www.steveengland.com. (Our grateful thanks to Steve
for the information, the recording and the photo. Steve has very kindly provided a number of photos which appear
throughout the Seventies Supplement. There are also some more here.)
Barry Everitt has worked in and around the music business for
many years. Back in the sixties he was a drummer in blues bands Hobo James and The Farm. A sports journalist on The
Romford Times / Stratford Express, he became interested in the burgeoning underground press of the
late sixties and contrbuted to some of the publications, including Friendz, International Times and Oz.
In 1970 he was heard on the freeform hippy station from Monte Carlo, Radio Geronimo (as was
Ian Anderson). Sadly Geronimo did not last. In 1972 Barry started Revelation Records
with John Coleman. They released the Glastonbury Fayre triple LP recording of the previous year's Glastonbury festival. In
July 1973 a number of ex-Geronimo DJs, including Barry, launched Radio Seagull from the Caroline ship, then
anchored off Holland. Barry broadcast on Radio Seagull until September that year, then moved to New York where he was
heard on WPLJ-FM. Throughout the seventies he broadcast on various radio stations across the USA, returning to the
UK in 1981 to work at London's legendary live music venue, Dingwalls. Since then he been a sound engineer, producer,
tour manager, agent and done numerous other jobs around the London music scene, spending many years as promoter at The
Borderline club. He has can now been be heard on TotalRock
where he is known as The Music Rhino! For more information, see his MySpace page.
John Farlow From Brighton in Sussex, John was on Radio Seagull for just one stint, lasting a fortnight, in August 1973. Can anyone provide more information?
Martin Fisher From Chelmsford, Essex, Martin was introduced to the
joys of radio listening by his grandfather at an early age. Martin was a fan of the offshore stations of the sixties
and, on leaving school, followed his father and grandfather into the Marconi company where he became a technical
apprentice. He was listening to Radio Caroline in 1976 when he heard an advertisement for a transmitter engineer. Fired up
with enthusiasm he wrote off - and heard nothing. A few weeks later he noticed that the station was now giving
out a different mailing address. Thinking his original application may have got lost in the change-over, Martin wrote
again. A week later he was contacted and invited for an interview and, within a few more weeks, he was out on board the
Mi Amigo. He had applied to be an engineer but was invited to be a DJ too. His first show was in the early hours of 11th
January 1977 and he quickly became one of the station's regular presenters while still looking after the technical
side as well. He had been told he would be working one month on the ship, one month off, but when his first stint aboard lasted
eleven weeks, he realised that this was wishful thinking! Martin's last show from the Mi Amigo was on 26th June
1979. He tells us: I remember having a bit of a break after that, but I did go back to the Mi Amigo once more,
for just one week starting 15th September 1979. I was persuaded to return. The station was off the air. When I arrived on
board at 9.30 in the morning the ship was like a ghost ship with nothing running. By 3pm we were back on the air! I
had repaired a problem with the voltage regulator on the Henschel generator, and it was this generator that largely kept
the station going during the last few months from the Mi Amigo. I did not present any shows during that last week, as
there were a lot of jocks on board, all trying to squeeze into a few hours each evening. I had an interview lined up at
the BBC the following week. I joined BBC TV as an engineer in October. After nearly 3 years with Caroline, it was sadly
time to move on. Caroline had been a fantastic experience but clearly the Mi Amigo was not going to last for ever and for
various reasons it was time to move on. After his time with BBC television, Martin went on to work as an engineer
in commercial radio although he still found time to make a short return to Caroline in the eighties when it was
broadcasting from the Ross Revenge. He presented a few shows as The Night Owl in July/August 1985.
He can currently be heard on the Radio Caroline satellite
service. There are some photos of him in the station's former studios here. (This photo shows Martin on the air. He says Those orange T-shirts - we
were all wearing them at the time. They were like the Caroline uniform. Actually they were Miss Sheila T-shirts, one
of Radio Mi Amigo's advertisers. We did not get many perks on the ship at that time, so when a load of T-shirts
arrived we all had one. Our thanks to Martin for the information, the photo and the audio.)
Ed Foster Previously on land-based pirate,
Radio Kaleidoscope, where he had broadcast under the
name of Keith Ross Jenson, Ed was on Caroline from August 1976 to July 1977. His musical tastes leant towards
the heavier end of the rock spectrum which polarised opinions: some listeners loved it, others didn't. It is
thought that it was this difference of musical opinion that led to his parting of the ways with Radio Caroline. We do not
know where he is now. Ed, please
get
in touch (Photo taken by Ed's Dutch DJ colleague Marc Jacobs and kindly provided by Hans Knot. Thanks to
Bob Lawrence for some of the above information.)
