CHAPTER FOURTEEN: The Battle for the Rough Tower.

     (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction by the Rolling Stones was up full blast. I was jumping and dancing to it. The seagulls were keeping a safe distance. We were fully installed on the re-furbished, more powerful, newly polished M.V. Mi Amigo. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a boat. I called to Mike who was down the other end of the ship. “Hey! A boat's coming.”
“Where?” he shouted.
“Look there” I replied.
“It must be some fishing boat.”
“It's the tender” I said as I recognized it.
“I guess they're bringing food supplies and mail.”
“That's strange” I said. “We just had a supply boat. Another boat is not due for two days.” I was wondering if something was wrong. The supply boats were pretty regular. As the small boat neared, I could see two men in the boat, the skipper at the wheel and a second man. I kept looking and then I recognized him. It was Ronan. He waved and called but his words were lost in the wind. “What the hell? Ronan's on board!” I said to Mike.

Roy Bates, owner of Radio Essex, later Prince Roy of Sealand.

     “Let's tell Dave” he said, as he dived through the door to the studio. Coming up from the sleeping berths came Rosko, rubbing his eyes.
“What's goin' on?” Rosko mumbled.
Pointing to the boat, I said “the tender's coming and Ronan's on board.”
     The tender approached. Ronan was still calling to us. Now I could understand. “Tom! We've been invaded” I heard. “Our tower's been invaded!”
“What tower?” I shouted back.
Now he was waving frantically. “Quick, jump on board” he shouted. “I'll tell you.”
     As the tender moved alongside the Mi Amigo, I sprang from Caroline to the tender and landed on the deck with a thud. The smaller boat quickly moved away.
“What's this about an invasion? And what tower?” I said, as soon as I got my footing.
“The Rough Tower, baby. It became ours because I put a man on it. That was last week.”
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Yesterday, Roy Bates, owner of Radio Essex invaded our tower and forced our man ashore” Ronan explained.
“That's piracy!” I said. “But what do we need a tower for? Are we going to broadcast from it?”
“Hell no. I'm going to make it into a nation” Ronan said with a sparkle.
“A nation?” I was amazed. “What the hell for?”
Ronan laughed then, smiling, put his hand on my shoulder. “It's legally possible” he said. “All it needs is a name and a constitution and so on.”
     Suddenly I understood. “Hey yes. If you can create a nation, then anyone can create a nation.”
“That's right, Tommy baby! The whole concept of nationalism becomes absurd. If people can see that, then one of the causes of war will be eliminated. Great music and art comes from politically unrestricted areas, like out here, in international waters.”

Rough Tower, as it was in 1967. Photo by Keystone, reprinted from ‘Offshore Radio’, published by Iceni Enterprises.

     My admiration for Ronan was deepening all the time. A seagull swooped down for some scraps on the ocean surface. We were heading out to sea in the direction of a mark on the horizon that was getting larger and larger. Slowly I could make it out. There were two towers, each twenty feet in diameter and sixty feet high. A steel platform was across the top of the towers that carried two old rusty anti-aircraft guns. In the middle of this platform stood a large two-storey structure with windows. On its flat roof was a machine-gun platform. The towers were stained with years of sea and wind. A ladder hung down the side of one of the towers. This was a formidable looking fort. It had been built by the British, for defence, during the Second World War but had been abandoned many years ago and was therefore, according to the laws of the sea, because it was in international waters, available to anyone.
     The skipper throttled down as we headed for the ladder and then suddenly all hell broke out around us. It was like the water was boiling. We all ducked down. We were being fired at with a machine gun. The skipper lost hold of the steering wheel and the boat spun around. The force of the turn sent us hard into the bulkhead. Ronan shouted “Oh Holy Mary, Mother of God! Let's get the hell out of here!”
     The skipper grabbed the wheel. The boat surged away. I got up and looked back. A small figure was shaking his fist and shouting. And then he started throwing gasoline bombs at us. These hit the water bursting into flames. One landed on board. Ronan grabbed the fire extinguisher and in a cloud of caustic smoke, smothered the fire. I watched the tower as we sped away.
“Now that's what you would call a close call” said Ronan.
“That guy nearly killed us!” I said.
“That's for sure. That man is pretty desperate to hold onto that tower.”
“So how are we going to get the tower back?” I asked.
“Let him have it. We've got a fine ship.”
     Later I learned that Roy Bates created a nation out of that tower and called it Sealand. The last I heard, he is still out there today.
     I climbed back on board, a little bruised, wondering what other challenges were in store for us and if we would survive all the forces that were against us.
     The news report about our adventure was slanted to emphasize that we were unsavoury. On the ITV News the announcer said “Men from Radio Caroline try to land on Rough Tower, a lonely fort seven miles off Harwich, but the tower was already occupied and they were driven off by petrol bombs and shots fired from the tower.” They showed shots of the tower and the damage that our tender had suffered.

Sunk Head Fort, used briefly by the unsuccessful Radio Tower and later destroyed by the military.

     Then there were scenes of the army preparing to explode Sunk Head, another World War II fort. Oxyacetylene cutting equipment was being dropped by helicopter and the news man reported “Army prepares to explode Sunk Head Fort so as to stop it being used for an offshore radio station.”
     But to really tarnish our image they also reported, in almost the same breath, “Today owner of Radio City, pirate station, Reg Calvert was found shot dead. Major Oliver Smedley was accused of the murder. James McKnight and other men have invaded Radio City and have refused to leave.” And there was clips from the Postmaster General, Anthony Wedgewood Benn's statement on television “The pirates are a menace and I don't believe at all that the public wouldn't support action to enforce the law. The pirate radio ships have no future at all. I'm quite convinced of that!”
     We were all in the ship's lounge, gathered around the TV, having supper. “I can't believe this!” said Mike. “Now we will be associated with murder and all we do is play records and have fun.”
“Yes” I said, “The government will try any trick to get rid of us. First they'll try and smear our good name and then, once they have made us look bad enough, they can get away with attacking us in any way they wish.”
“Do you think they'll do that?” asked Dave.
“I don't know but you can see that our battle with the government is heating up.”

Dave Lee Travis.

     Little did I know how true those words were. Yes, the battle with the government was heating up. Soon there would be an attack and then our counter attack with the British Royal Navy. At the same time there were plans by MI5 (the British equivalent of the CIA) to eliminate us completely. And yet, while all this was happening, it appeared that nothing could stop us. Because our popularity would soon move into overdrive. Our audience would soar to 23 million. We would all become superstars, being swamped by screaming fans when we appeared in public. And yet still there was the darker side. Because, under the surface, everything would not always run smoothly. We would have our own internal battles. Soon there would be a mutiny on board the good ship M.V. Amigo, something unheard of among ‘good’ sailors. Ronan would take on a new investor who, much to my own personal objections, would force us to play his records. Records which I believed were ‘crap’. Yes, soon the battle front would not only be with the government but would be inside our own camp. And yet, all the time, there was nothing that could stop Ronan's creative imagination from dreaming up new adventures and new ways to entertain the British people. Soon Ronan would initiate Caroline Television, a system of broadcasting from two airplanes. Yes, now we believed we were unbeatable. There was no limit, or so it appeared. Were we heading for the stratosphere or to the ultimate crash in the North Sea? I had no idea. That night, when I went to bed, I had no inkling of the challenges and adventures that were waiting for me....
 
To read the rest of the chapters and know the full story, you can buy the book by clicking here
 
There is also an audio version available. It consists of Tom reading extracts from the book, with some of the music mentioned in the narrative. It is a two CD set and can be bought from the Radio Caroline Society.
 
Further chapters:
 
15) Mutiny On Caroline.
16) 23 Million People Can't be Wrong.
17) Attacking The British Navy.
18) MI5 Plan to Attack Radio Caroline.
19) Leaving Caroline Under Duress.
20) The Ships, The Politicians and The Traitors.
21) CHLO and Fanshawe College.
22) The Rise and Fall of Caroline Television.
23) Conclusion.
24) Epilogue.
25) What Others Say.
26) Other Interesting Information.

©Tom Lodge 2002