PART THREE: My home on Caroline.

This page contains an extract from Tom Lodge's book about Radio Caroline. It is completely revised and expanded from the earlier versions, is in a hard cover and contains more photos from Tom's time with the station, with more tales of life aboard, more insights into the music and more stories of the musicians who made the sixties such a special era. The book is entitled The Ship that Rocked the World: How Radio Caroline Defied the Establishment, Launched the British Invasion and Made the Planet Safe for Rock and Roll and is available from Amazon and good book shops.
 
This extract is taken from chapter one, My Home On Caroline:

     There was the ship, my future home on the horizon, a ship with a mast that looked far too big. Yet she sat queen-like, steady in the water. As our small boat bounced closer to her, I could hear the rumble of engines. Once alongside, our small boat rode up and down with the waves while the ship rested steadily, solid and secure. A new adventure was beginning.
     As we jiggled and rocked with the waves, I waited for the right moment to jump aboard. I was greeted by the deejay Simon Dee, a tall, sandy-haired and serious-looking man. He took me for a tour of the ship. But in that first moment as my feet hit the steel deck with a ring, the smell of the ship, the smell of new paint, diesel oil and salt flooded through me. I was immersed with memories of other ships. Memories of the ship I rode when I was four, fleeing Hitler's armies; then the ship I rode when I was eighteen, emigrating to Canada to be a cowboy; and finally at twenty the ship I sailed on from New York to win back Jeanine, the girl of my dreams.
     Embedded in these memories, with all the smells, was also the sour odor of other people's vomit. But this was the ocean. This was freedom. This was where there was no end to the water. This was where the horizon melted into the sky and the air tinged my lungs. This was the release from all of society's confinements.