Chris Sandford was born in London in 1939. Like many of Radio Caroline's early presenters, he came from a theatrical background. He had played a character called ‘Walter Potts’ in television's Coronation Street. Walter was a milkman who became a pop singer and the song featured in the programme, Not Too Little Not Too Much, became a Top 20 hit for Chris in 1963. He released a number of other singles including You're Gonna Be My Girl with backing band The Coronets which featured drummer Mitch Mitchell, later to join the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Keith Skues's book Pop Went The Pirates refers to Chris working in the sales department in Caroline House, the station's headquarters, but he also hosted promotional events and briefly broadcast on Caroline North. He was only there for about six weeks in 1964 or 1965 but he made a big impression on one listener. Derek from Manchester wrote in the guestbook: “A great DJ. (The other presenters) took the piss out of him and locked him in the loo whilst on the air!” Chris continued to make records, including a Bob Dylan spoof called I Wish They Wouldn't Always Say I Sound Like The Guy From The USA Blues. John Cronnolley has written to remind us that Chris also had a Top 30 hit in March-April 1975 as part of a duet with the late voice-over star Bill Mitchell. They appeared under the name “Yin and Yan” on a spoof of Telly Savalas' hit version of If. Since his time at sea, Chris has continued to act and appeared in an episode of ITV's Danger Man series set on a pirate station. Called Not So Jolly Roger, it was released on video in 1992 and is currently available as part of a DVD box-set. Chris appeared in TV's The Persuaders as well as such films as Half A Sixpence, Deep End and Up The Chastity Belt. See the Internet Movie Database for full details. He also works as a voice-over and producer. (Photo from Offshore Echo's)

Mike Scott Born 1947 in Port Seton, East Lothian, Mike was heard on Radio Scotland for two stints of a fortnight each during the summer of 1967. He was then 19 years old. After his time at sea Mike trained as a printer and worked for Scotprint in Edinburgh. He left there in 1976 and joined Radio Forth, where he presented the breakfast show for many years before moving into promotions. Mike is now Head of Promotions for the EMAP radio stations in Scotland. (The photo and birthplace details come from ‘The Music Spinners’ published 1976 by MRP. Other information courtesy of Ian Anderson via Hans Knot's International Radio Report.)

Roger Scott No relation to the Roger Scott who worked on Capital Radio and Radio One, this Roger was born in north London and joined Radio Essex with no previous radio experience in 1966. Like many of his fellow Essex DJs, he moved on to Radio 270 off Yorkshire. Roger also worked on Radio 390 for a time and joined Radio Caroline North just four days before the ship was towed away by a creditor in March 1968. He returned to the sea under a new name when, as Arnold Layne he joined Radio Northsea International in April 1972. He moved on sixteen months later and has since worked for a number of radio and television stations under his real name of Greg Bance. These have included Radio Orwell, Anglia TV, Beacon Radio, LBC, Breeze AM, LWT, Two Counties Radio and Mellow 1557. He is also a freelance voice-over. There are more pictures of Roger in Guy Hamilton's and David Sinclair's photo albums and he has also very kindly donated some of his own photos. There are also some more recent pictures taken at Caroline's 40th birthday party and the Radio Essex's fortieth anniversary boat trip. You can hear more clips of Roger on the air in David Sinclair's tape collection.

Roger Scott on Radio 270 at lunchtime on Saturday 12th August 1967. Recording courtesy of Martyn Webster (duration 2 minutes 22 seconds)

Jon Sedd John Crosse was born in Northern Ireland and joined Radio London as a junior salesman in the very early days of the station. He then switched to the commercial traffic department, looking after the scheduling of advertisements. In September 1965 he was asked to go out to the Radio London ship, the Galaxy, for a couple of weeks to help with administration. As the station was short-staffed senior DJ Tony Windsor asked John to assist them by reading the news. At that time nobody used their real name on air so John had to choose an alias. At the suggestion of Dave Dennis he became Jon Sedd as in “Jon said the news”. As well as reading the bulletins he also co-presented some shows with Paul Kaye but his time on the station was brief: just two weeks. He then returned to his job in the Curzon Street office. In 1966 he crossed the road to work at RadioVision, selling airtime for Radio England / Britain Radio (Radio London was at number 17, they were at number 32 Curzon Street). John then went to BFBS Cyprus as a newsreader, presenter and producer. The next stop was BBC Radio Four, then Southern TV. John then joined Yorkshire Television in Leeds where he spent 17 years. He retired a few years ago and now spends much of his time in America where he has family. (Many thanks to Bob Preedy and John Crosse for much of the above information. Bob points out that YTV also employed a number of other former offshore broadcasters as freelance announcers during the sixties and seventies including Paul Kaye, Earl Richmond and Keith Martin.)

Tony Silver was first heard on the low powered sweet music station Radio Invicta. This was a small-scale operation and everyone was expected to take turns behind the microphone. “Tony Silver” was the on-air name of engineer Phil Perkins. Phil later moved to another fort-based station, Radio City, and again “Tony Silver” made the occasional return to the air. From City he moved to Radio Caroline North but here he concentrated on his engineering duties and did not present any programmes. Nowadays Phil lives in High Wycombe, Buckinghamshire, from where he operates an electronics supply company, Pervisell. He also has a personal web site at www.philperkins.com. (We previously reported that Tony Silver and Ed Laney were the same person. This is incorrect. Many apologies. Thanks to Phil for getting in touch and to Andrew Emmerson for his assistance.)

a very short clip of Tony Silver on Radio Invicta. This tape kindly donated by Karl Jones (duration 21 seconds)
another short recording of Tony Silver on Radio Invicta's Top Sticks programme, kindly provided by Harm Koenders of The Offshore Radio Archive (duration 42 seconds)

Dave Simser was one of the people behind Tower Radio, as a director and disc-jockey. This short-lived venture was based on Sunk Head Fort, fourteen miles from Walton on the Naze and operated, intermittently, during the last few months of 1965 and first few of 1966. An American, he was known on air as “Dynamite” Dave Simser. He remembers: “I was at the time honourably discharged form the U.S. Air Force in the UK when the offshore stations caught my attention and I checked out what I could do with reference to any structures (the naval forts) still available. With a number of friends we ventured out with a small fishing boat to see if it was possible to get any structures not presently occupied. We saw Sunk Head Fort, abandoned, and returned to shore to get food, water supplies and, with expert hobbyists John Waters & Bill Rollins on radio transmitting, went to London where all sorts of broken-down radio equipment and parts were available - most likely left over from the British military. This equipment was secured and transported by a Dutch tender as we needed a larger ship to get equipment to the fort. To enable us to board the fort, we used a squirrel ladder. After test transmissions towards shore, we discovered that there were many black spots and at times our only audience was fish!! Eventually we heard, via reception reports from shore, that the service had improved and I hosted a show from 12 noon to 2pm, The Country & Western Roundup. If you could not get a request played on my show, give up because you couldn't get it played anywhere! Then 4 to 6pm I had a show called Lucky Dip where anything came up. We received many mail sacks of reports of receiving our broadcasts, saying that our programmes were enjoyed and many letters of encouragement. When on shore we represented the station with a view to the advertising potential from the many businesses who were aware of our venture into commercial broadcasting and many of then did in fact support us until we were put out of business. The navy and coastguard kept vigil on all the forts with the view to putting them out of business at the first opportunity, and did. In the meantime making supplies rather difficult by holding up cooking and heating supplies and bags of potatoes, Brussels sprouts, etc. in case they contained T.V. or radio transmitting equipment. The Tower was in 60 or so feet of (salt) water. It was water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink so we went sparingly on our drinking water rations. We were on 236 metres, 14 hours per day. We crossed over to TV transmission which, due to the time element, never really got off of the ground, off the water, or even off the fort!” The following year, in August 1967, Sunk Head Fort was destroyed by a team of Royal Engineers as a hazard to shipping. Dave went for a change of career. He writes: “I decided to raise chickens and turkeys in upstate New York, USA.” (Many thanks to Dave Simser for his memories, to Bobby Simser for putting us in touch and to George Morris for providing the picture of Dave taking part in a ‘test transmission’ for Tower Television.)

Thanks to Martin Fokkens for this press advert.

David Sinclair was born in Kent in 1942. After finishing school he worked as a trainee printer before becoming an accounts clerk in a shipping company and then a building society. He was also assistant manager for a security firm and ran an entertainment agency before becoming a pirate broadcaster. His offshore career followed a similar career path to that of Roger Scott, taking in Radio Essex, Radio 270 and Radio 390. With a taste for big band music, the first and last stations on this list were probably closer to his own preferences but he also played the Top 40 on 270 where he hosted two shows: David Sinclair's Ladies Morning Music and the late night In The Midnight Hour. Following the anti-pirate legislation he moved to Canada where he has worked as a broadcaster and voice-over under the name David Vincent for many years: 1967-70 announcer on CHWO Oakville, Ontario; 1970-71 Music Director at CKSO Sudbury, Ontario; 1971-74 Program Manager for CFTK Television in Terrace, British Columbia; 1974-85 Program Manager at CKXM-FM Edmonton, Alberta, and 1986-91 announcer for CHQT Edmonton, Alberta. Between 1987 and 1992 David was also Chief Instructor at the Columbia Academy Of Radio & TV Arts in Edmonton. (David says The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame was “quite a memory jolt as you can imagine.” Many thanks to David for getting in touch and for providing a number of recordings and photos from his own collection. He has also published a book about Radio Essex, containing many of these photographs. Entitled ‘Making Waves’, it can be ordered from the web site operated by the book's co-author Bob Le-Roi. More pictures of David feature in Guy Hamilton's, Edward Cole's, and Roger Scott's photo albums. More recent ones, taken at Radio Essex's fortieth anniversary boat trip, can be found here.)

David Sinclair on Radio Essex, 4th August 1966. This clip kindly provided by Ray Andrews (duration 1 minute 3 seconds)
David Sinclair on Radio 270 on an undated clip, probably from early 1967. The recording is courtesy of Martyn Webster (duration 2 minutes)

The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame needs your

Keith Skues The author of the definitive book on British offshore radio, Pop Went The Pirates, Keith was born on 4th March 1939 in Timperley, Cheshire. After working as an insurance clerk he was called up for his National Service in 1958. Keith made his first broadcast with the British Forces Network in Germany and was also heard in Kuwait, Kenya and Aden. On returning to Britain he joined Radio Caroline South in September 1964. He had already acquired the nick-name “Cardboard Shoes” and developed a number of catch-phrases including: “Mrs.Lady,” “speaking of ____ which we weren't” and, when signing off after reading a news bulletin: “on the news, Keith Skues.” His theme was an orchestral version of Bob Dylan's Mr. Tambourine Man by The Golden Gate Strings. The Thank Your Lucky Stars web site reports that Keith was the guest DJ on this legendary Saturday evening ITV pop music television show on 13th March 1965. Keith was one of the “Good Guys” on Caroline but left in the general upheaval that engulfed Caroline South at the end of 1965. The station's audience figures had been suffering from the fierce competition of Radio London and Ronan O'Rahilly, who owned Caroline North, bought out his partner Allan Crawford, owner of the South ship. There were a large number of staff changes and in December Keith moved to Radio Luxembourg. He went back to sea the following May when he joined Radio London. He stayed with this station until the close-down in August 1967 when he joined the BBC. He was on both Radio One and Radio Two before moving on to commercial radio. He served as Programme Director of Radio Hallam in Sheffield for many years and can now be heard on BBC Radio Norfolk and other local stations in the region. His Sunday show, Pirate Radio Skues, includes recordings of the offshore stations of the sixties as Keith waxes nostalgic about the old days of watery wireless. A fan has released a CD celebrating Keith's radio shows. Called Skuesville, it costs £4.99 and more details can be found on the BBC Norfolk site. Pop Went The Pirates is available in either hardback or paperback from Amazon.co.uk. Keith was awarded the MBE in the 2004 new year's honours for services to broadcasting and charity. His web site is at www.keithskues.co.uk. (As well as the clips below, you can hear Keith on one of the Bryan Vaughan airchecks. There is another picture of him in Keith Hampshire's photo album, he also features in Colin Nicol's photo album and there are more recent ones taken at Caroline's 40th birthday party and the Radio Academy Celebration of Offshore Radio.)

Keith Skues presenting The Big Line Up on Radio Caroline South sometime around May 1965. The recording is from Martin Lynch's collection and has been kindly donated by Lynne Sims (duration 2 minutes 30 seconds)
A couple of extracts from a special programme featuring Keith Skues with the Beach Boys, broadcast on Radio London on 11th June 1967. Tape courtesy of Ray Andrews (duration 2 minutes 26 seconds)
Keith Skues reading an April Fools Day spoof news bulletin from 1967. The Slough phone number he mentions belonged to Radio London Programme Director Alan Keen. This is an extract from the Offshore Echo's tape Highlights Of Big L part two and is used with kind permission (duration 2 minutes 32 seconds)

Mark Sloane Born 7th March 1942, originally from Somerset, Mark was a radio fan from an early age. While on holiday in Luxembourg in 1965 he met DJ Chris Denning and asked his advice on getting into the business. He suggested Mark should contact Mike Raven who was recruiting for King Radio. Mark got a job and broadcast under the name of Mark Hammerton. King Radio turned into the much more successful Radio 390 and Mark stayed on through this change. He was one of the station's most popular broadcasters and, after a year on 390, he was approached by Radio Caroline South. He moved there but they insisted he took a more radio-friendly name. He became known as “Mark Sloane,” a name he found by browsing through the telephone directory. His theme tune was Flamingo by Herb Alpert's Tijuana Brass. Mark left Britain for a job on Radio Antilles, Montserrat, but this did not work out and, after a couple of months, he was back in the UK. He landed a show on Radio 355 where he stayed until it closed down in August 1967 just ahead of the Marine Offences Act. Radio Caroline was determined to carry on despite this new law and needed DJs. Mark returned to Caroline and this time joined the North ship. Unfortunately an article in a tabloid newspaper identified him. The legislation was still new and untested in the courts and Mark felt it was probably safer to leave the station than risk prosecution. That was the end of his radio career and he now works in the advertising industry, although he was heard on Radio Caroline's restricted service broadcast from London Docklands in 1996. There are more pictures of Mark in Keith Hampshire's photo album, Martin Kayne's photo on Caroline North and Edward Cole's Radio 390 photo album. There are more recent pictures taken at Caroline's 40th birthday party here, at the Olga Patricia DJs 40th anniversary reunion here and at the Radio Academy Celebration of Offshore Radio here. Mark has very kindly donated some studio recordings from his time with King Radio and Radio 390.

Mark Hammerton on the evening edition of the Radio 390 request show, From Me To You, for 1st August 1966. This tape was kindly provided by Harm Koenders of The Offshore Radio Archive (duration 2 minutes 52 seconds)
Mark Sloane on the lunchtime request show on Radio 355, 8th July 1967. There is an extract from the José Feliciano session that Mark mentions on the Alan Black audio clip. This tape is kindly provided by Stuart Russell (duration 2 minutes 41 seconds)

Jerry Smithwick One of the three DJs on the original “Swinging” Radio England team to come from the town of Moultrie in Georgia, along with Ron O'Quinn and Larry Dean. Jerry served in the US Army for two and a half years as well as working for WMTM in Moultrie and WDUN in Gainsville, Georgia, before crossing the Atlantic to join Radio England. This station was a glorious failure. Some excellent programmes won it a loyal following but there were not enough listeners to make it pay and it only survived for six months. None of the Moultrie three even lasted that long and Jerry soon returned to his radio career in the States. He then went back to the army for a while and, following that, back into radio. In 1974 Jerry switched to television and in 1987 was appointed President and General Manager of the NBC-affiliated TV station in Panama City, Florida. In 1994 he left broadcasting and did a couple of years of consulting work. In 1996 one of his friends ran for Congress and Jerry now runs the Congressman's office in Tallahassee, the Florida state capital. You can hear more of Jerry and see more photos in our feature on Radio England and Britain Radio.

Jerry Smithwick on a 3-8pm show from “Swinging” Radio England. Tape kindly provided by Frank George (duration 3 minutes 14 seconds)

Bob Snyder was born in Newark-on-Trent, Nottinghamshire. During the early sixties he worked in the theatre as a stage manager as well as a club disc-jockey. His ambition was to become an actor and, after a variety of short-term jobs including beach photographer and chicken processor, he enroled at RADA in 1965. On graduating from the Academy, he couldn't find work as an actor so joined Radio 270 in April 1967. The Oceaan 7, Radio 270's ship, was not the most stable of vessels and Bob says there were many scary times when extreme gale force weather made him think his time was up. In 1968, like his fellow Radio 270 men Pete Bowman and Brendan Power, he joined Radio Antilles in Montserrat. When commercial radio started up in the UK, Bob was heavily involved. For several years he worked with former Radio London boss Philip Birch as a radio consultant, bidding for franchises. He was on Piccadilly Radio in Manchester, the original programme director at Nottingham's Radio Trent and he presented the morning show on Beacon Radio in Wolverhampton. In 1980 he emigrated to Canada. He worked for CKLG in Vancouver and then moved to northern British Columbia to do the breakfast show on CJDC. Bob had always written topical comedy material for use in his shows but in the mid-80s he began it to sell it to other DJs as well. This hobby rapidly grew into a large-scale business. In 1999 he retired after almost two decades with CJDC to concentrate on his Toms Lake Humour Company. It is what is known as a “show prep” service, supplying a daily email of topical one-liners to more than one thousand radio personalities across the United States and Canada. (Many thanks to Bob for updating us and supplying the photo.)

Bob Snyder battling against the elements during a rough night on the North Sea near the end of his time with Radio 270 in 1967 (duration 1 minute 51 seconds)
Bob Snyder on the Radio 270 morning programme, Sunday 25th June 1967. It was the morning after a big storm so this recording is possibly from the day after the show above. Both recordings kindly provided by Martyn Webster (duration 3 minutes 1 second)

Jack Spector was a former Brooklyn Dodger who had become a big American radio star on WMCA, New York. In 1965 he began hosting a taped daily show, recorded in the States, which went out on both Radio Caroline ships. It was the nearest most British listeners would get to hearing true American Top 40 radio. Compared to the more sedate sound of UK radio, it was truly wild. Jack would yell, ring bells, throw in sound effects and every word was drenched in echo. He also had a number of catch-phrases. He was “your main man, Jake, your leader, your boss with all the hot sauce.” Every night you were encouraged to take the pledge: “raise your right hand and repeat after me: I will have no other leader after my leader, Jake.” Every show ended with “look out street, here I come.” Jack made a concerted effort to tailor his show to his British audience, throwing in comments about the other Caroline DJs, and he played a great deal of excellent music. Despite being sponsored by Roulette Records, he reflected everything that was happening on the American Hot 100, on whatever label, and won a loyal national audience. The programme ran until the spring of 1966 on Caroline South but the North ship carried on broadcasting his tapes for a few months more. Jack Spector continued broadcasting in America for many years after his UK listeners had last heard him. He died of a heart attack on the 8th March 1994, aged 68, while on the air at WHLI, Long Island New York. There is an excellent WMCA web site which contains photographs and airchecks of all the station “good guys,” including Jack. There is also a photo on the tribute site for WNBC, a New York station where he worked in the early seventies. Bryan Vaughan has very kindly provided this studio quality recording of one of Jack's Caroline shows from early 1966. (Thanks to Colin Nicol for this photograph of Jack studying Caroline's reception area and also to Kenny Tosh for pointing out that Jack's theme tune, ‘Hand Clappin'’ by Red Prysock, is available on Hard To Find Jukebox Classics 1957: Rhythm & Rock.)

Jack Spector on Radio Caroline in October 1965 (duration 3 minutes 30 seconds)

Thanks to Hans Knot for this trade paper advert seeking
sponsors for Radio Caroline's Jack Spector Show.

Cathy Spence Radio Caroline had the Caroline Club; Radio London had its club; Radio 270 has the 270 Set and Radio Scotland had the 242 Clan. Cathy Spence ran the Clan. Born in Perth on 14th November 1945, she was a former beauty queen who took care of the club administration, wrote a column for the magazine and presented a weekly request programme on Radio Scotland every Saturday lunchtime. The show was packed with dedications for members of the Clan and star interviews. We asked if anyone could provide more recent information and Cathy's Radio Scotland colleague Jack McLaughlin has sent this: “Cathy Spence and I were great friends during our time on Radio Scotland. She co-hosted The Radio Scotland Club programme with Stuart Henry from the studios in Cranworth Street Glasgow. In the mid 1970s I was host of a TV series on Grampian Television called Pop Scotch. We had some really top names of the day including The Move, The Moody Blues, Desmond Dekker, Johnny Nash etc. I was asked by the producer to find a co-presenter and I immediately thought of Cathy. We worked happily together for a couple of series before the producer left to return to London and dear old Grampian reverted to more traditional music. I kept in touch with Cathy for some time. She was involved in the beauty and hairdressing business.” Many thanks to Jack and to Mary Payne for passing on the email. You can see more pictures of Cathy with some famous friends and read one of her magazine columns here and here. She attended the Radio Academy's Celebration of Offshore Radio in August 2007 and there are photos here.

Cathy Spence on the last ever 242 Clan programme from Radio Scotland, 12th August 1967. Tape kindly provided by Ray Andrews (duration 2 minutes 58 seconds)

Bob Spencer Originally from Newquay in Cornwall, born in 1939, Bob's first radio job was on Radio City. This pop station, based on Shivering Sands Fort, had a tendency to take on new, inexperienced disc-jockeys, stick them on the air for a week, then pay them off with £5. As a result, a large number of the inductees in The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame got their first taste of radio on the “tower of power.” From City, Bob headed north, joining Radio Scotland, where he made a name for himself. In 1967 this station hit trouble. It was prosecuted for broadcasting from inside territorial waters and had to go off the air until the ship could be moved to a safe anchorage. Bad weather delayed this and, for a time, the ship moved to Northern Ireland. Unfortunately the radio signal from there was not strong enough to reach its Scottish fans. The delay in getting back on the air proved very costly and one of the station executives was fired over it. Bob, who by this time was Senior DJ, quit in sympathy. After a time skippering boats in Florida, he is now retired and living in the Helston area of Cornwall. (Many thanks to Arthur Sutherland of The Ultimate Cockup and Virtual Boredom Site for the information and George Morris for the photo. You can see more photos of Bob here and here.)

Two clips of Bob Spencer on Radio Scotland. The first, from the Sixpenny Snowball Show, is taken from a documentary about the station made by the Forth hospital radio network in 1968. The second is from Swing Across Midday on 19th May 1967. That tape kindly provided by Ray Andrews (duration 2 minutes 47 seconds)