In 1975, our annual family holiday took us to the Lincolnshire coast of Chapel St Leonards. I took a small radio with me, as I had plans to listen to the pirate radio station, Radio Caroline.
In 1964, Radio Caroline began broadcasting to Britain from a ship offshore. It was a direct challenge to the radio monopoly of the BBC. Caroline, an unlicensed station, was the first of many off-shore pirate broadcasters that offered something different.
The pirate stations appealed to a younger audience.
But only if you could find them.
I had been told that it was possible to listen to Radio Caroline, even inland. But I doubted that was true. It was difficult enough to pick up another popular radio station back then, Radio Luxembourg, but find Radio Caroline? A ship that was somewhere off the coast of England. I was never quite sure where they were.
No one seemed to know.
