The Christmas and New Year period is party-time wherever you are and a small ship or fort a few miles off the coast is no exception. Despite being apart from their loved ones, the offshore disc-jockeys made the most of their situation as you can hear from these vintage festive clips.....

1964

Doug Kerr, Simon Dee and (we think) Garry Kemp on Radio Caroline South at midnight on 31st December 1964. The “child scientist” they refer to is engineer Patrick Starling (duration 4 minutes 56 seconds)
 
Some of Caroline's lesser-known advertisers wish their customers a Happy New Year for 1965. Tape courtesy of Harm Koenders of The Offshore Radio Archive (duration 45 seconds)
 
Radio London had only just started regular transmissions and was still sounding a bit hesitant on the air that Christmas. This is Paul Kaye on 24th December 1964. Recording taken from an Offshore Radio Heaven mp3 CD, issued by Stichting Media Communicatie (duration 2 minutes 25 seconds)

1965

By Christmas 1965 Radio London was sounding much more self-assured.
The first few minutes of Christmas Day 1965 on Radio London. Tony Windsor, Paul Kaye, Mike Lennox and Dave Cash serenade the listeners with some Christmas carols (duration 3 minutes 42 seconds)
 
New Year's Eve 1965 was a big day for Radio Scotland. The station launched at ten minutes to midnight. Disc-jockey Paul Young opened proceedings, followed by Managing Director Tommy Shields. The first programme, starting at midnight, was pre-recorded on land and featured David Kinnaird playing records with some applause tacked on the end to give the impression of a band playing live! He chatted to local celebrities, played good luck messages from various stars and introduced some of the new presenters.
Some clips from Radio Scotland's opening programme: David Kinnaird chatting to fellow presenters Paul Young, Stuart Henry, Charlie White, Pete Bowman, Larry Marshall and Bob Spencer (duration 5 minutes 51 seconds)
 
New Years Eve 1965 on Radio Caroline North as Tony Prince, Jim Murphy, Bob Stewart and the crew welcome 1966 and, if you can believe them, link up with Radio Caroline South for a direct relay of the chimes of Big Ben! (duration 4 minutes 43 seconds)
 
And on Caroline South, after sending out New Year greetings to their loved ones, DJs Tony Blackburn, Norman St.John, Graham Webb and Dave Lee Travis, engineer George Saunders and a crew-member extend their good wishes to their rivals on Radio London before closing the station down for the night. All four of these recordings are courtesy of The Offshore Radio Archive (duration 4 minutes 44 seconds)

Keith Skues, Kenny Everett and Chuck Blair celebrating Christmas on Radio London. Photo courtesy of Offshore Echo's.

1966

Tony Windsor and Mike Lennox talking about the Christmas celebrations aboard the Radio London ship. The TW clip is from Jumbo Records' The Wonderful Radio London Story CD and the Marshall Mike extract is from RBL's Sounds From The Seas cassette (duration 1 minute 47 seconds)

From Dave Hawkins' photo album (click to magnify):

For more Christmas pictures, taken on Radio London, see Mitch's photo album.

Steve Young has supplied this menu from Caroline South's 1966 Christmas dinner. Steve says: “Our Dutch chef went overboard (in a sense) in order to create this fabulous meal.” Click to enlarge.

Of course it was not just the disc-jockeys who were separated from their loved ones at Christmas. The crew members were also away from home. Many of them took the opportunity to send messages over the air.
Dave Lee Travis on the Christmas Day 1966 edition of The Caroline Countdown with some of the Dutch crew-members on Caroline South. This recording is from Martin Lynch's collection and has been kindly donated by Lynne Sims (duration 2 minutes 24 seconds)
 
The disc-jockeys would sometimes produce Christmas “pantomimes” to go with their festive programmes:
 
1966 was the year of the Batman television craze and the Caroline presenters gleefully jumped on the Bat-bandwagon.
the first part of Batman's Christmas Caper starring Mike Ahern, Dave Lee Travis and the rest of the Radio Caroline South disc-jockey team. The clip is from the CD The Legend Lives On produced by Hans Knot and released by Stichting Media Communicatie (duration 2 minutes 3 seconds)
 
Keith Hampshire remembers: “The part of The Commissioner was played by Bob Larkins (newsreader) and the part of The Mayor was played by yours truly. This brilliant production was conceived and written by Bob Larkins, who I believe had worked at one of the major motion picture companies in London. DLT was in charge of production.”
 
Radio City also produced a panto that Christmas. Written by Ian MacRae, it was a spoof of Alice In Wonderland, featuring the adventures of one Marjorie Poopdeck. Asked for his recollections, 36 years later, Ian says: “I remember there was a lot of ad-libbing going on between Alan Clark and myself. If you'd seen the crap gear we had to record it onto, you wouldn't believe it! I do recall that nobody at the London office had any idea of what we were planning. We just did it. We were quite nervous as to what the reaction would be when we got ashore. Luckily all was OK.”
senior DJ Tom Edwards' on-air singing debut. The other voices heard on the clip are those of Ian MacRae and Adrian Love. The recording is from RBL (duration 3 minutes 8 seconds)
 
On Britain Radio, married disc-jockeys with families were given Christmas off, leaving the single guys to man the ship.
Ted Delaney, on a pre-recorded Christmas Day programme, thanking his colleagues who are still at sea while he is enjoying the time at home with his family (duration 1 minute 38 seconds)
Phil Martin, still on the ship, presenting one of the live Christmas Day shows (duration 1 minute 58 seconds)
Both recordings courtesy of The Offshore Radio Archive.
 
On Caroline North too, the DJs on shore leave had left recorded messages to be played on Christmas Day.
Tony Prince, on the air on Christmas morning, reading his cards and playing messages from a couple of his colleagues lucky enough to be at home for the holiday season. Tape courtesy of Paul de Haan (duration 5 minutes 7 seconds)
 
On Radio London Paul Kaye saw in 1967 with a recap of the station's achievements during the previous twelve months.
Paul, along with an assortment of pop stars and fellow DJs, wishing every one a Happy New Year. From Jumbo Records' The Wonderful Radio London Story CD (duration 1 minute 38 seconds)

1967

By the end of 1967 the Marine Offences Act had closed down most of the British offshore stations. Only Radio Caroline International was still going, broadcasting from ships off Essex and the Isle of Man. Because of the passing of the new law the festive season was especially poignant for the disc-jockeys, now even more cut off from their families than ever. Robbie Dale has kindly donated the photo, left, to The Pirate Radio Hall Of Fame. He writes: “This photo was sent to me recently by Pinky Siedenburg, the Dutch girl hired by Terry Bate to run the office he rented for Radio Caroline International at Singel 160, Amsterdam. This was JW (Johnnie Walker) and I opening Chrissy presents. One not included in the photo was a budgie in a cage, I named it Caroline, what else? Alas the budgie came to a sticky end the following year. (My wife) Stella's marmalade cat Thomas somehow got the poor thing and ate it. Christmas on the boat: I recall it to have been very merry, lots of good food. The British and Irish listeners are very special people. Sacks full of letters some containing money, cards, presents, food, drink and medication for colds and the like, all sent with love.”
 
Christmas 1967 saw the premier of The Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour.
Robbie Dale playing all the tracks from the Beatles' soundtrack EP on Caroline South on Christmas morning. Clip from Johnnie Walker and Robbie Dale - Their Offshore Radio Years, an mp3-DVD available from The Offshore Radio Guide (duration 4 minute 40 seconds)
 
Johnnie Walker, Andy Archer, Stevi Merike, Glenn Adams and Carl Mitchell with the chimes of Big Ben, courtesy of a radio tuned to the BBC, and some particularly dreadful singing. Radio Caroline South, New Year's Eve 1967 (duration 4 minute 16 seconds)

1971

Following the seizure of the two Caroline ships in March 1968, a few Christmases passed without any English-language offshore radio in Europe. Radio Northsea International was launched in 1970 but closed again a few months later, not lasting through to Christmas that year. In early 1971 though it returned to the air and by Christmas was well established with Dutch programmes during the day, English at night.
 
On New Year's Eve, the disc-jockeys took it in turns to play their favourite records of the year:
Robb Eden starting to spin his fifteen favourite tracks from the past twelve months. Recording courtesy of Manfred Steinkrauss (duration 4 minutes 12 seconds)

1972

During the autumn of 1972, Caroline's mv Mi Amigo put to sea again and began broadcasting off the Dutch coast. Output over the first few months was erratic and, for a while, the station was known as ‘Radio 199’ but it was called Radio Caroline again by Christmas. And, just a mile away, Radio Northsea International was on the air too.
 
8pm on Christmas Eve and Mike Ross is joined in the studio by some of his colleagues during the Hitback Show. As well as Mike, you can hear Don Allen, Mark Slate and Arnold Layne, alias Father Christmas. An extract from Offshore Echo's tape Offshore Classics vol.3, used with kind permission (duration 4 minutes 22 seconds)
 
Christmas morning on Caroline with Crispian St.John, kicking off a day of mixed Dutch and English programmes. The clip includes an advert for Gold, a film produced by Caroline's founder Ronan O'Rahilly. The recording is taken from a cassette called 21 Years - A Lady vol.II marketed in 1985 by J.E Patrick. This particular copy is from Martin Lynch's collection and has been kindly donated by Lynne Sims (duration 2 minutes 45 seconds)
 
Andy Archer and Crispian St.John, on board the Caroline ship, had both previously worked on RNI so it was only natural that the two stations should link up to exchange the season's greetings. It sounds as if there may have been some alcohol invoved too!
Robb Eden and A.J Beirens on RNI sharing a few in-jokes with Andy Archer and Crispian St.John on Caroline late on Christmas night. Recording from the Offshore Multimedia CD-ROM (duration 2 minutes 37 seconds).

1973

Offshore radio was about to undergo another boom time at the end of 1973. As well as the well-established Radios Veronica and Northsea International, on the Mi Amigo test transmissions were going out for the launch of a new Belgian station, Radio Mi Amigo, shortly to be joined by the English-language programmes of Radio Seagull; and on the mv Jeanine, low powered test broadcasts were running for the launch of another Belgian-owned station, Radio Atlantis.
 
Not mentioning any station name while in test broadcast mode (although the sound of the Caroline bell makes it pretty obvious) Norman Barrington and Andy Archer celebrate Christmas on the mv Mi Amigo. Recording courtesy of Paul de Haan (duration 5 minutes 20 seconds)
 
There was to be no link-up between RNI and Caroline at Christmas 1973 - the RNI bosses had forbidden it after the previous year's frivolities - but there was still plenty of fun on both ships.
 
New Year's Eve on RNI and Mike Ross, his wife Sheila, Brian McKenzie and Robb Eden welcome in 1974. Recording kindly donated by Hans Knot (duration 4 minutes 17 seconds)
 
And just down the coast Radio Atlantis had just started broadcasting from its new ship, the mv Jeanine:
Crispian St.John, on the air at midnight UK time, wishes everyone, including political leaders and the British royal family - all, no doubt, regular listeners - a happy new year! Recording courtesy of The Offshore Radio Archive (duration 3 minutes 33 seconds).