Tony Monson Tony first started in radio while living in Bermuda, on the same station that employed Duncan Johnson and Mike Lennox. He moved up the ladder from librarian and production assistant, to relief presenter, deputising for DJs on leave. Eventually, in 1965, he got his own evening pop and soul music show. In 1967 Tony left Bermuda to move back to London and joined the easy-listening Radio 355. It was a popular station but its days were numbered and 355 closed down in August 1967, ten days before the Marine Offences Act became law. Tony and fellow Radio 355 presenter Dave MacKay then started one of the country's first mobile disco businesses and in 1971 opened a record and hi-fi shop in Brighton, Sussex. While living in Brighton Tony also found time to broadcast on BBC Radios Brighton and Medway (now known as Southern Counties Radio and Radio Kent.) A soul music fanatic, he was involved with the London land-based pirates Radio Invicta, JFM, Horizon and Solar Radio. In 1985 Tony went legit when he joined Essex Radio and, later, the Thamesmead station RTM (since renamed Millennium Radio.) He can now be found on the satellite and web reincarnation of Solar Radio. We have a recent photo of Tony, taken at the Olga Patricia DJs 40th anniversary reunion.

A short clip of Tony Monson on the 9am-noon show on Radio 355 from 29th July 1967. Recording generously provided by Harm Koenders of The Offshore Radio Archive (duration 49 seconds)
Tony Monson on a 6-7.30pm show on Radio 355 from the summer of 1967. Apologies for the poor quality of the signal. Radio 355 reduced power at night to prevent causing interference to an Italian station on the same frequency and reception suffered as a result. This tape kindly provided by Ray Andrews (duration 2 minutes 16 seconds)

Chris Moore Born in Washington DC in 1941 into an Irish-American family, Chris came to the UK while still a child. He served in the Merchant Navy, a job which was to stand him in good stead later, and then worked in advertising, before going into the music business. A friend of station owner Ronan O'Rahilly's, he was heavily involved in the launch of Radio Caroline. It was Chris who introduced Ronan to Ian Ross, whose father became one of the main financial backers. It was also Chris who organised the purchase of the Caroline ship, the mv.Fredericia. He was the presenter of the very first show on British pirate radio on Easter Saturday 1964. The first record was The Rolling Stones' Not Fade Away, dedicated to Ronan. Chris did not stay on the ship for long but moved ashore to work as Caroline's first Programme Director. Joanna Turner, a correspondent to The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame tells us that Chris lived in Oxfordshire during the late eighties and early nineties employed as a freelance photographer for, amongst others, the Museum of Modern Art in Oxford. Unfortunately she has since lost contact with him but if any one knows where he is now, please get in touch. (Many thanks to Joanna for her help.)

Chris Moore from the very early, middle-of-the-road, days of Radio Caroline with interruptions from Simon Dee, an extract from the Offshore Echo's tape Offshore Classics vol.7, used with kind permission (duration 2 minutes 1 second)

Ed Moreno Born on 19th June 1933 in Wimbourne, Dorset, Ed first worked on radio in America while studying medicine there. Severe diabetes forced him to return home to the UK where he continued DJ-ing at dances held in Wembley Town Hall. In 1962 he was approached by a man called Arnold Swanson. He had made money from inventing a car seat belt and had plans to use it to launch Britain's first offshore station, to be called GBOK. Ed recorded programmes in readiness but GBOK never made it on to the air. (There is more about GBOK here.) Instead in 1964 he joined the fledgling Radio Caroline. Unfortunately Ed became extremely ill and soon had to leave the ship. After a prolonged hospital stay he became Programme Controller on Radio Invicta, the early sweet music station based on Red Sands Fort. When Invicta closed down there was a slight pause in Ed's career although the Thank Your Lucky Stars web site reports that Ed was the guest DJ on this legendary Saturday evening ITV pop music television show on 13th February 1965. Ed joined Radio City where, because of his continuing poor health, he recorded his What's New and Late Date programmes on land. He stayed with City until September 1966 when he moved to Britain Radio. In 1967 he became joint Programme Director of Radio 270 (with Rusty Allen) and he stayed with the station almost until its close-down. He was involved in the initial planning for Radio Northsea International but his only broadcast on the station was an interview with singer Dorothy Squires. After RNI, Ed joined the BBC for eighteen months before qualifying as a doctor and becoming a GP. In August 1980 he was discovered lying in a coma and later died in hospital. The inquest found that he had killed himself with a massive dose of insulin while the balance of his mind was disturbed through depression. He was 47. ( Natalie Dwyer contacted us. Her mother, Roma, was a fan of Ed Moreno's programmes on Radio Invicta. She started to write to him in 1964 and they continued to correspond throughout his broadcasting career. Roma kept Ed's letters and has now very kindly donated them to The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame. Many thanks to Natalie and Roma. There are also pictures of Ed, from 1964 on Radio Invicta, here and from 1966, while he was on Britain Radio, here.)

Ed Moreno's tribute to Tom Pepper on Radio Invicta. Pepper was the station owner who drowned with two other members of staff, DJ Simon Ashley and engineer Martin Shaw, just before Christmas 1964. This tribute was broadcast while the search for Simon and Martin's bodies was still continuing. The tape was kindly provided by Natalie Dwyer and Roma Roach (duration 3 minutes 58 seconds)
Ed Moreno on two of the many stations for which he worked: introducing What's New on Radio City and reading a weather forecast on “Swinging” Radio England (the news bulletins on Radio England were usually read by presenters from the sister station, Britain Radio). Tapes kindly provided by Martyn Webster (duration 2 minutes 12 seconds)

Thanks to Martin Fokkens.

Spangles Muldoon (sometimes spelt Maldoon) Born in Chester on 5th October 1946, real name Chris Cary, he joined Caroline South just as the Marine Offences Act took effect on 14th August 1967. Previously an engineer, he was initially responsible for playing non-stop music through the night and, during this period, he was known as Chris Anthony. Once he had mastered the studio, he started to make the occasional announcements, changed his name to Spangles Muldoon and then took over the noon-3pm show. It became known as the Lunchtime Loonabout (“with the goon, Muldoon”). The Offshore Themes web-site reveals that his theme tune was an instrumental version of Yeh Yeh by the Mark Wirtz Orchestra. For a few months he broadcast under the name of Herb Oscar Anderson, having acquired a jingle for an American DJ of that name (from New York's WABC). In March 1968 he left Caroline South to transfer to the North ship but the station close-down beat him to it. His return to sea came in July 1970 when he joined Radio Northsea International. He later ran the returning Radio Caroline off the Dutch coast and broadcast on Radio Luxembourg, both as Spangles Muldoon and under his real name. At the same time he was getting involved in the early video games market, later expanding into computers. Former Radio Scotland DJ Brian Webb (also known as Brian McKenzie on Radio Northsea) told him about the burgeoning Irish land-based pirate scene and, together with former Caroline director Philip Solomon, Chris started Sunshine Radio in Dublin. The station manager was his old Caroline colleague Robbie Dale who later took over the station as Chris moved on to start up another, Radio Nova. This was probably the most professional and successful of all the Irish pirates. In 1986 Nova closed down and Chris moved back to the UK. He now had a company dealing in satellite equipment and for a while ran a satellite-distributed version of Radio Nova in Britain which employed a number of former pirate DJs including Paul Burnett, Mark Wesley (alias Mark West) and Tony Blackburn. He also owned a Birmingham station Buzz-FM for a time. In 2002 Chris put in a bid to take over the long wave transmitter in the Republic of Ireland previously used by Atlantic 252. Unfortunately RTE, the Irish state broadcaster which owned it, turned him down. Chris continued to run a computer business and re-launched Radio Nova on the internet. He was about to start a version of the station in Tenerife but, while visiting the island in January 2008, he suffered a stroke. He died on 29th February. The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame tribute is here. (Many thanks to George Morris for providing this photo. There are some more recent ones, taken at Caroline's 40th birthday party, here and, at the Radio Academy's Celebration of Offshore Radio, here.)

Spangles Muldoon on Radio Caroline South International from 21st December 1967, an extract from Offshore Echo's tape Offshore Classics vol.8, used with kind permission (duration 2 minutes 24 seconds)

The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame needs your

Jim Murphy Born in Beeville, Texas, on Easter Sunday 24th March 1940, “Murf The Surf” grew up in Tuleta, a small town between San Antonio and Corpus Christi. His hobby was ‘pole squatting’ and once spent 49 days up a pole! He worked on a number of Texan radio stations, including KAML, WAKY, KILT and KIBL before heading for Europe in 1965. Jim was on his way to Spain but stopped off in England and never got any further. After a brief stint on Radio Caroline South, he moved to the North ship and it was there that he made his name, particularly with his Midnight Surf Party and Country & Western Jamboree. This latter show was taken over by Don Allen when Jim returned to the States in 1966. He continued to work in broadcasting but, following his retirement for medical reasons in 1990, lived in Austin, Texas, and operated a fascinating web site dedicated to the memory of Radio Caroline North. The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame exchanged a number of emails with him until these suddenly stopped. His web-site was not updated after September 1998 and some of his former colleagues feared the worst. One of them, David Williams, confirmed these fears when he found this record of Jim's death on the web. David says: “Sadly it would appear that Jim died in June 2000. No further information is available but I know, when I talked to him in 1998, that he was incapacitated with some long standing illness contracted when serving in Vietnam. He was an eccentric (who else can claim a world record for sitting on top of a pole?) and I have fond memories of him and particularly remember being fog bound at Blackpool airport while trying to get back to the Isle Of Man for Mick Luvzit's wedding. We made it with minutes to spare.” Many thanks to David for passing on this sad news. Jim's web site has now been retrieved and preserved by Chris and Mary Payne. He was obviously very proud of the time he spent on Radio Caroline. Let's hope that, during the last few years of his life, the feedback he received via the site reminded him just how much he was appreciated by the listeners.

Jim Murphy ending a Midnight Surf Party on Radio Caroline North in October 1965. The “cruise” along the coast, referred to by Jim, never took place because of bad weather (duration 2 minutes 34 seconds)

Thanks to Colin Nicol for this poster advertising a Caroline Club Ball in New Brighton. What a great line-up.
On the bill was a singer called Ronnie Jones who cut a record produced by Radio Caroline boss Ronan O'Rahilly.
Ronnie is still singing and is now based in Italy. More details can be found on his web site www.ronniejones.it.

Mitch Murray was one of the leading song-writers of the beat boom era. In 1963 alone, he wrote (or co-wrote) I'm Telling You Now and You Were Made For Me, top 3 hits for Freddie and the Dreamers, and How Do You Do It and I Like It, both number 1's for Gerry and the Pacemakers - as well as many more. So it was a surprise to see his name mentioned by Gerry Bishop in his book Offshore Radio as being a DJ on Radio Caroline South. The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame had no recollection of ever hearing him. So we got in touch with Mitch. Had he been a Radio Caroline disc-jockey?: “I was probably the shortest-lived DJ on Radio Caroline and it was a spur of the moment thing. I had gone on board to be interviewed. I can't remember who conducted it, but it definitely wasn't Tony Blackburn. He'd finished his shift and left on the tender on which I arrived. Suddenly I was stranded by stormy weather which prevented the tender from returning that day. As I found myself spending the night on Caroline, someone suggested that I present a show of my own. I came up with The Seasick Show. I'm pretty sure the original presenter was present but I can't recall the balance of contributions. I think the show lasted a half-hour, one hour tops. Then the tender arrived and my Radio Caroline DJ career was over. I hadn't been paid, so frankly, my dear, I didn't give a damn.” So Gerry Bishop was right. Mitch was a DJ, although his offshore broadcasting career lasted only an hour or less. Colin Nicol remembers Mitch's visit: “As ‘Mister Murray’ he had a comedy hit at the time with Down Came The Rain. He came aboard to promote it with me. We had a bit of fun, he sang a bit of it live on air and I got someone to tip a bucket of water over him! I don't remember who. It may have been ‘The Child Scientist’ (engineer Patrick Starling).” Following his visit to Caroline, Mitch continued to write hit songs but has recently concentrated on speech-writing and humour books. One of his books, How To Write A Hit Song, apparently inspired Sting to become a songwriter. (Many thanks to Mitch and Colin for their help. Does anyone have a recording of ‘The Seasick Show’?)