CHAPTER TWELVE: Ronan's Story of Caroline's Birth.

     After the shipwreck, and while all the ship repairs were being accomplished, I spent more time at Caroline House, and with Ronan. One day, while I was hanging out in and enjoying Ronan's company, we were chatting about this and that. I asked “Ronan. Tell me how you started Radio Caroline.”
“That's a good story” he said. “Well it was all because of Georgie Fame.”
“Georgie Fame?” I said with interest.

Georgie Fame.

“Yeah, I was running the Scene Club. I use to have the Rolling Stones appearing there before they were known. That was how they got started. At that time I found this young organ player, great blues music. ‘OK Georgie’ I said to him. ‘We'll try and get you a record contract.’ So we recorded the song Yeh Yeh but all the record companies said his music was too ‘black’. So I made the record myself but the BBC also said it was too black and they wouldn't play it. They wouldn't even touch it.”
“Everybody sure missed out” I said. “I mean, January of last year (1965) it was number one.”
“Listen Tommy baby. It's always like that. The ones who are in control never know what's best.”
“So then what?” I asked.
“All that was left was Radio Luxembourg.”
“Old crackley Radio Luxembourg?” I said incredulously. “But they only play the first minute of each record. Hardly a way to programme a radio station.”
“Sure, but that's all there was left. I had a package with a copy of Yeh Yeh under my arm. I must have looked like a courier or maybe it was the Irish accent, who knows. I walked into the front office and said to the receptionist ‘Which way to Sir Geoffrey Everitt's office?’ Just like that. I was moving quickly. She pointed to the door and, before she could say another word, I went straight in. Quick and friendly.”

Radio Luxembourg's Geoffrey Everitt. Despite Ronan referring to him as “Sir Geoffrey” he did not have a knighthood. Photo from ‘Radio Luxembourg - the Station Of The Stars’, a Comet book.

“She didn't try to stop you?” I asked.
“Oh, she might have but I was too quick. You have to remember that this was my last chance. All the other doors had closed.”
“I love it!” I said.
“Now there I was in the top man's office. There were three desks. A large one with Sir Geoffrey sitting and a small desk on each side with two smaller men sitting. It was all so funny looking. There was a couch in front of the desks. I plunked myself down there. They all looked most surprised. ‘Yes?’ one of them said. ‘What can we do for you?’
I held out my package and said ‘I have a record for you to play on your radio station.’
All three burst out laughing. Sir Geoffrey got up, went to a curtain on the wall, pulled a cord and revealed a board headed ‘Radio Luxembourg's Programming’. Starting at 6.00 p.m. it showed the record companies' bookings all the way to closing at 1.00 a.m. ‘See’ he said. ‘We have no room.’
‘Well then’ I said ‘I'll have to start my own radio station, won't I?’
‘How will you do that?’ one of then asked.
‘You have a station in Luxembourg. I could put one in France.’ You should have seen their faces. And with that I got up and left. That was the seed, Tommy. That started me thinking and searching how to start a radio station.”
     “What made you call us Radio Caroline?” I asked. “I mean, it is such a great name. How did you get the idea?”
     “Another funny story. I was flying to Dallas Texas to buy the transmitter and I was reading this magazine, Time or Life or something. There was this picture of John F. Kennedy chasing his daughter around the Oval Office and the caption read ‘Caroline holds up government.’
‘That's it!’ I said. ‘Caroline! Yes. That's it!’”

Tom on the air on Caroline South.

     Ronan paused for a moment, as he went into memories. There was a twinkle in his eyes. He started to laugh. “Oh yes” he said in the laughter. “And that's another funny story. When I got back to London, we had a board meeting. It was a little bit stuffy. They had been coming up with all kinds of different names for the radio station. Like Radio Mars or Radio Ray, some futuristic sounding name. X was also popular at that time. Have an X in the name. So I announced ‘We're calling our new radio station Radio Caroline.’ All their jaws dropped. They were appalled. But they were too polite to say anything.
Then one of the men came over to me and said, in a very fatherly and private way, ‘Ronan. If you call it Caroline, they'll think you're queer.’
‘Maybe I am’ I said.”
We both laughed and I said “Well they sure had you wrong. But thanks to your persistence, Ronan, it's turned out to be a perfect name.”

©Tom Lodge 2002