Pirate Radio at Probus

Brian Cullen Radio Presenter"Pirate" Ship Radio Caroline

AUDLEM’S ‘POP REBELS’
RELIVE DAYS OF PIRATE RADIO

After our regular August break from twice-monthly meetings, Audlem Probus Club’s retired business and professional men and women just want to “break free” and relive a little of our youthful rebellion!

Most people probably don’t think of retired folk as former “rebels” in society. Yet our generation championed ending the domination of traditional music programmes on BBC Radio, for the option to hear “pop” music, which caused outrage in some when it hit the airwaves courtesy of commercial “pirate” radio stations. Think of Radio Luxembourg (1933 to 1992), and Radio Caroline, broadcast from a ship of our coast from the 1960’s.

Cue Brian Cullen. This Thursday, (Sept 11) Brian will take us back to those heady days with his recollections of listening to Radio Caroline as a Wirral teenager. He says: “Radio Caroline was Britain’s first offshore commercial radio station. It was the answer to the rather bland music being played by the BBC in the mid-1960s”. Brian recalls being 14 years old when word about Radio Caroline, initially moored off the Suffolk coast, was all the talk at school: “This ‘pop pirate station’ was playing ‘The Beatles’, the ‘Rolling Stones’ ‘The Who’, ‘Small Faces’. Like many youngsters at the time, I was hooked, maybe more than most!”.

A few years later, once the offshore station had closed, Brian started work as a radio presenter, moving later to Liverpool’s Radio City. Following a family move to Wales, he joined the Marcher Sound radio group based in Wrexham. Those early influences and memories clearly persist to this day. Brian currently hosts an online weekly show for “Radio Caroline Flashback”, playing original jingles and music from the 50’s to the 80’s.

Join us as we look back on those early days of offshore radio when, as Brian adds, “Caroline” was Queen of the airwaves.

Audlem Public Hall from 10am, Thursday, Sept 11.
Visitors and guests welcome.