Pirate for an hour

Good day to you all,

Today, I wish to share with you an experience that is not Kabul based, but happened this week and was important to me. This may be a trip down memory lane for some, I know some of you were more involved than others with the Pirates off our coasts, some of you will simply be wondering what on earth I am going on about!

You see, growing up in Kent in the 60's and then more so as a teenager in the 70's we had the joy of the Pirate radio stations off our shores. I was too young for the early Pirates, the Big L, Radio London and the like and came to it more in the late 60's, early 70's. In those days we listened to stations on Medium Wave (AM as it is now known) and stations had wavelengths instead of frequencies. Laser on 558. Caroline on 259 and so on.

As teenagers, myself and the Macrae brothers were avid listeners. After the UK Marine Offences Act the Pirates moved to be based in Holland and we mainly listened to RNI (Radio Northsea International) and another less well known station Radio Atlantis and of course, Radio Caroline. In 1974, the Dutch too passed a Marine Offences Act and the Pirates were finally silenced. I remember a group of boys sat around a small transistor radio in the South Quad at school, frantically trying to keep tuned to the signal listening to the final broadcast of RNI as it closed down at, I think, 11am. The next class after morning break began at 11am and we all trudged into class late, a tear in our eyes as a piece of our lives were silenced forever. I still remember the last record played was "The Long and Winding Road".

However, one station defied all, both the Dutch and British Governments and continued to broadcast from the Ross Revenge. The Mother of them all, Radio Caroline vowed to continue and throughout this period we listened to the likes of Stevie Merike, Tony Allen and Andy Archer on scratchy transistor radios, records sometimes jumping all over the place as a storm tossed the ship on the ocean (no CDs, just good old vinyl records). Frequently we would send postcards to the Spanish address with requests. In fact, somewhere in a cupboard is a book I kept of the top 40's. Every week, me and the Macrae bros would sit in their playroom and listen to the top 40 and record it in a book for prosterity.

So upset were we on the day the oher stations cloed down, me and John got a boat to Zeebrugge the next day , then got a bus to Schevenigen, slept in a bus shelter overnight and then saw the Radio Atlantis boat brought into harbour for the last time, and watched as Customs officers supervised the welding shut of the doors as the boat was impounded. (Not bad for a couple of 16yr olds). We had no idea what we were doing, but we HAD to be there!!! It was what I would call an event and we had to witness it.

Now where is all this waffle leading you may ask and what has it to do with Kabul 2007. Well, Radio Caroline is still broadcasting, now from studios in Maidstone on the internet and on Sky channel 0199 (so give it a listen!!)

From 9am to 10am every morning they broadcast a Top 15 sent in by a listener. Well, I sent mine in from dusty Kabul a few weeks ago and on Wednesday Oct 31st they broadcast it. So after more than 30 years I got to choose the music on Radio Caroline for a whole hour, I was a "Pirate for an hour".

The wonders of the internet, from postcards that took weeks to go to Spain and then finally arrive on a ship out in the North Sea to instant internet access from Kabul, Afghanistan. A dream come true for me, a true event as far as I am concerned.

What would that teenager in the 70's have thought if you had told him 30 years later he would choose not just a request, but a whole hour and top 15 on Radio Caroline, and send it from Afghanistan!!

I think thats worth a drink.

Next time, the "Battle of the Jalalabad Road" or "Anarchy on the streets"