Cover, Guide to Contents

Imprint and dedication

Behind the Scenes at Radio Caroline

(in the 1970s)

Lyn Gilbert

First Published in Great Britain in 2023

Copyright © Lyn Gilbert 2022

The moral right of Lyn Gilbert to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.

 ACIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-9999334-8-7 (Print)
     ISBN 978-3-75544-650-7 (E-Book)

Published by Woolloomooloo

Typeset by Designed Memories

E-Book edition: Wolf-Dieter Roth, Miller E-Books

Cover photograph copyright Foundation for Media Communication Rob Olthof

 

This book is dedicated to all those, past and present, who were involved in keeping Radio Caroline on the air.

Introduction

There have been a number of books written by people who were involved in Radio Caroline in the 1960s – which included Caroline North and South. Other published books have covered the 70s, 80s 90s and more recent years. Each has had a unique story to tell – either from their perspective and personal involvement or through research, interviews and information gathering. None tell the whole story. That would be impossible. From its inception in 1964 up until 1967, the organisation was huge with many people involved. After the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act (MOA) came into law in August 1967, Caroline had to operate clandestinely. Ronan O’Rahilly – Caroline’s main initial founder decided he would continue with Caroline when many competing stations (such as Radio London) closed down. He began to restrict details of what each individual who worked in the organisation knew. He would weave plausible stories to those he encouraged to work for Radio Caroline for very little financial reward, and compartmentalise the different projects he was running. It was the only way the projects could continue to exist.

Although I was involved in various projects of Ronan’s from 1974 - 1980, I didn’t know the full details of how everything worked. I didn’t want to know and asked few questions; only those pertinent to my work. Perhaps because I didn’t ask too many questions, Ronan was forthcoming with a plethora of information – although I realised over time, he told me only what he wished me to know and I suspect not all of it was true.

With the passing of years, some dates have become blurred and I cannot always pin down the precise chronology of events. I did not keep a diary. I have prompts from my old passport, letters, memory and other memorabilia. I might have forgotten specific dates, but not the events.

My story and involvement with Caroline was interwoven with the documentary film Ronan was funding about the assassinations of John and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King. I cannot talk about my part in Radio Caroline without including it.

Some names have been altered to protect identities. Where I use real names, it’s either because they have already been used in previous books published about Caroline, are well known in the music industry or are no longer alive. With crew and presenters, I have used their ‘professional’ names. Their real names may have been plastered over various websites, but I’m sticking to the ones we used on Radio Caroline.

1

Ijmuiden, Netherlands September 1972

Under the cloak of darkness, the Mi Amigo was waiting to be towed out to sea. Presenters and other crew had been waiting below deck for some time. Some had been on the boat for weeks. Others had sneaked on at the last minute.

The tugboat captain was waiting for the all clear; suspicious as to why they were leaving at such an ungodly hour. Clearance papers had been passed to him with the story that they wanted to anchor in position and give the crew a full working day to set things up.

The man standing near the docks watching events knew the tugboat captain was radioing to someone. He’d asked many questions and he now suspected the captain was attempting to get hold of someone from the Scheepvaartinspectie to verify the clearance. The papers were in order so he knew that wouldn’t be a problem.

What might be a problem is if he found out Ronan still owed money to the company which had carried out the repairs. Ronan had assured him that the bills would be paid – eventually. They needed to get the ship fully fitted out and back on the air to generate some income first.

He’d asked Ronan whether they were going to be broadcasting as Radio Caroline as he knew Ronan had been in discussions with various potential backers from other radio stations.

‘Not immediately. But soon,’ Ronan had replied, refraining, as usual, from imparting much information.

At last the tugboat started to move. He watched for some time until he was sure they weren’t going to be intercepted before setting off to find a phone box.

Some miles away the phone rang waking Ronan from a deep sleep. He’d had a late night, discussing options with potential investors and waiting up to hear the news, but sleep had eventually found him.

‘It’s me. They’ve gone.’

‘Great to hear. I’ll see you soon,’ he said hanging up. Talking on the phone had to be done in short sentences and code – just in case anyone was listening. The Marine Offences Act of 1967 had meant that broadcasting Radio Caroline was illegal, unless it was outside territorial waters. Once the Home Office heard that Caroline was up and running again, he was sure they’d be tapping his phone and the phones of all those associated with him. They might have already done so, if the Dutch authorities had passed on information about the test broadcasts they’d carried out recently.

He could just picture the look on their faces once they learned Caroline was back.

2

Chapter one covers the ‘story’ Ronan told me in 1973 about ‘hijacking’ the Mi Amigo and sneaking it out of the docks in Amsterdam and Ijmuiden in 1972. He exaggerated it considerably from the scaled down version I’ve written. As I sat listening to him, I imagined scenes from an episode of Danger Man I’d seen where men in dark clothes climb aboard a ship at night and take control of it. He justified the actions he’d set in motion explaining that the ship had been stolen from him some years before and he needed to rescue it before it was sold for scrap. He only mentioned the one boat and not being a resident of England during the 1960s, I had no idea that there had been two boats broadcasting; Caroline North and Caroline South. I was later to find out that the second, larger boat, had already been scrapped.

Ronan told me he bought back the Mi Amigo ship but couldn’t afford to pay for all the repairs that were necessary. He did pay for the ship but failed to mention that he ‘borrowed’ the money from a man named Norman Lambert whom he never paid back.

I first met Ronan in 1973 at a party being held by his friend, Oonagh at her home in West Hampstead. At the time I was renting a ‘flat’ from Oonagh that consisted of a large bedsit, plus kitchen/diner and shower room/toilet, on the ground floor of her house. The majority of her living accommodation was on the basement/garden level – although she retained a bedroom between my front bedsit and my kitchen/diner for her son Tadgh. I had been living at the West Hampstead house since the late summer of 1972 when Oonagh offered me the ‘flat’. I’d spent months attempting to find somewhere to live while staying with a group of Aussie journalists in WC2. I wasn’t supposed to be in the WC2 house as I had a young baby and most tenancy agreements precluded occupation by young children. As soon as I mentioned to potential landlords that I had a young son, they shook their heads and said ‘no children’. Oonagh proved to be the exception and I will be forever grateful to her for being willing to rent to me. She said she had been in a similar position once with her son Tadhg (pronounced tige). We quickly became close friends.

Oonagh was short like me and I learned that she had the majority of her clothes made to fit. Knowing I would have the same trouble she put me onto Bonny, her dressmaker, and thereafter, for many years, Bonny began to make my clothes. Up until then I’d had to take up any trousers or long dresses (which were the fashion then) I bought. Including the one I was wearing at the party where I met Ronan.

I couldn’t say whether the party was held in the winter, spring or early summer of 1973. I know I was wearing a white Indian Cotton style dress with red embroidery. However, during colder months Oonagh kept the Central heating blasting out so that she could wear her summer dresses all year round.

Central Heating was something I hadn’t encountered before coming to the UK. Born and raised in Australia, most of our homes were heated by coal/wood open fireplaces in the living room only. When gas fires became more readily available, they replaced the open fires. Other rooms in the house weren’t heated – even if they needed it in the winter. The house in WC2 had central heating but it was kept on a low temperature and I survived it without difficulty.

At Oonagh’s house, I struggled with the intense heat. I turned all my radiators off and opened the windows but the rooms were still really hot from the pipes running under the floor. I was also working in an office that had the heating blasting out all day with no fresh air. As a result, during the colder months, I developed continual bouts of conjunctivitis and spent a lot of time at Moorfields Eye Hospital.

My eyes were clear on the day of the party and Ronan plonked himself down beside me on the couch and said ‘You’re Irish, aren’t you?’ I had long chestnut brown hair.

‘No, I’m Australian,’ I told him, exaggerating my Australian accent. He hadn’t introduced himself.

‘Ah. You must have Irish ancestry then,’ he continued.

‘Some,’ I said nodding, reticent to elaborate. My maternal grandparents were Irish and there were Irish great, great grandparents on my father’s side.

He introduced himself then and I realised he was the man Oonagh had worked with in the 1960s. She’d told me various stories about their working lives. After telling him my name he leant over and asked me what I had been doing the night John F Kennedy had been shot.

I frowned at him. Why did he want to know this?

‘Do you remember his assassination?’ he asked.

‘Of course I do,’ I said without elaborating.

‘Are you going to tell me where you were and what you were doing when you heard about it then?’

I sighed. I couldn’t see why this man would find my account interesting but I launched into. ‘Okay. I was in my bedroom, supposed to be asleep but I had been listening to the radio and reading until the small hours of the morning. I’d just turned off the light when I realised I hadn’t done my Geography homework, so put the light and radio back on and started on it. A news flash came over the air saying the president had been shot. I was shocked and waited for further news. A later bulletin said he’d died. I cried my eyes out and didn’t get any sleep at all. John F Kennedy was my hero. When he was first elected president, I used to keep a scrapbook on him and his family. I was only a kid.’

I felt a bit embarrassed to be confessing my hero worship of a man who had nothing to do with my country.

Ronan broke into a huge grin, leaned across and said, ‘I think I’m in love with you.’

I laughed at him, and jumping up, went off to refill my drink.

I can’t recall at what point in the party the firemen arrived. Apparently, Ronan had had some difficulty finding Oonagh’s particular street so had called into the fire station to ask for directions. He invited them to the party. A large fire truck pulled up in the dead-end street and several enormous firemen came into the flat. One of the other men at the party was overjoyed. He had always wanted to sit in a fire truck so the firemen took him and Oonagh’s son Tadhg out for a spin.

Ronan was pleased that he’d brought someone so much joy and sat grinning from ear to ear.

Later I was sitting on the couch again eating a curry that Oonagh had cooked and he joined me with his own plate of food. At the time I believed it to be an accident, but later when I thought about it, I decided his actions were deliberate. Ronan’s left hand knocked the plate of food I was holding, spilling it all over my white dress. He was very apologetic and someone, possibly Oonagh, rushed over to help me clear up the mess. My dress was covered in curry stains though so I left the party, went upstairs to change and put my dress in a bowl to soak in the kitchen (contrary to my expectations all the curry stains came out and the dress was like new again).

Not long afterwards Ronan burst into my kitchen, claiming he’d come to apologise again. Oonagh had told him where he might find me. I wondered later if he’d thought he might catch me in a state of undress.

I made a pot of tea and we sat in that kitchen for some time, with him telling me the hijacking story and others about Radio Caroline and how he was planning to make a documentary film about John & Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King.

Simon, my son, was still down at the party with Tadgh keeping an eye on him. I popped down at one point to find Simon in the arms of a woman. He was a toddler at the time and partial to women who were showing large, exposed breasts. He regularly liked to be held by Oonagh in her low-cut dresses. As I didn’t possess similar dresses, it was a novelty for him. Often Simon’s little hand would stray down the front of the dress, much to Oonagh’s amusement. I could see he was working up to doing the same thing that day. The woman claimed she was fine with him so I returned upstairs where Ronan suggested we adjourn to my bedsitting room. I thought it was because the noise from the party was echoing up the stairs into my kitchen and he wanted a quieter space for talking. He did want a quieter space, but not for talking and soon started trying to give me passionate kisses.

When I protested that I barely knew him and that it was a little premature for such actions, he claimed he felt like he’d known me for years. I laughed, believing it was another of his chat-up lines.

We were disturbed with Tadgh returning Simon to me. He’d been up to his old tricks and Oonagh thought he’d grabbed enough breasts for one day. That soon put an end to Ronan’s passion.

I had my own phone connected in the flat and Ronan asked me for my number. I didn’t expect to hear from him again. I was wrong. He rang the following week and asked me out to dinner. I put him off a few times and then eventually agreed to it.

I arranged a babysitter and drove to meet him at a restaurant near Brompton Road somewhere. I wanted to pay for my own meal in case he had the same view I’d encountered with Australian men. They believed if they paid for the meal you ‘owed’ them sexual favours. He was surprised at my insistence and agreed, then suggested we went back to his place in Chelsea for coffee. I went (for tea – I don’t drink coffee). Although the evening ended with some passion, it didn’t work for me. I’d found some of his behaviour strange and overly paranoid. I liked Ronan but I wasn’t attracted to him in that way. We talked and agreed when we met again it would be as ‘friends’. He said he would like to continue seeing me as we got on so well, however other things intervened in the meantime.

Oonagh split up with her husband Sonny and asked me to let him have my ‘flat’. She wanted me to move into Tadgh’s bedroom upstairs and then share common areas with her and Tadgh. Tadgh was to move into the guest bedroom/study extension built onto the rear of the her flat. I didn’t have much choice in the matter, otherwise I would have been homeless. She and Sonny remained on good terms though and he joined us for meals every night. It was at this point Sonny taught me how to make an ‘Indian’ style curry using different spices rather than curry powder. Another thing I am very grateful for – I have been making ‘curry’ meals ever since. Sonny’s family was Parsee from Karachi and had had to flee after partition. He’d attended university in England, qualifying as an architect (and would later become involved with Ronan in Caroline Homes). The rest of his family emigrated to Canada at some point.

Fed up with how difficult it was to find accommodation with a child I was keen to buy my own place. I’d taken on extra night work at a local Disco to save money. Oonagh used to babysit, or if she wanted to go out, I’d pay someone to come in and look after both our children. Sometimes Sonny would babysit. I was saving as much as I could every month.

At this point Oonagh was talking about selling the one-bedroom flat on the top floor of her house and Sonny and I discussed how that would work for me long term as Simon grew. He suggested a loft conversion. Oonagh was away in France doing some French courses while we discussed this option but, on her return, she was not happy about the possibility of a loft conversion in the future so wouldn’t let me buy the flat. She’d talked about asking £٨٠٠٠ for it which was a little too expensive for me anyway. I soon found another one bedroomed flat for £٦٥٠٠ and applied to the local authority for a mortgage. In those days they were one of the easier options for obtaining finance for house purchases.

Oonagh kept pushing me to hurry the sale through as she had a few new French friends she wanted to come over to stay with her. My seller was also putting pressure on me. He said he had a cash buyer lined up if I didn’t hurry matters along.

The day I was due to move into the new flat I was at work with all my belongings when my solicitor phoned saying the sale had fallen though. I couldn’t understand how that had happened as we’d exchanged contracts and were completing that day. Apparently, a clerk at Camden Council had been dealing with last minute details and decided it was an illegal sale so cancelled everything. My solicitor, not being a conveyancing expert, accepted it. There I was at work, homeless.

My boss found me crying in the stock cupboard and after discovering what had happened phoned Camden Council to give them the sharp end of his tongue. He claimed they should have realised the legal aspects sooner and as a result were responsible for making me homeless. They agreed to put me in a B & B.

A few days later it was discovered that the clerk at the council was wrong. He’d been looking at the ground rent act of 1968. It had been amended in 1969. Unfortunately, the flat owner had proceeded with the cash buyer once he’d been told the sale had collapsed. Money had exchanged hands and the new buyer had already moved in despite legal paperwork not being completed. It was too late for me. Not only that but he had the right to keep the deposit I’d put down because I’d defaulted on the contract.

Eventually half of my deposit was returned – many weeks later. Within days the council put me onto a Housing Association and I moved into a very large one bedroomed flat on the edge of West Hampstead/Kilburn. It was short-life property in poor condition so when I eventually received my deposit back it went into making the flat more presentable. It is said in life that things happen for a reason. If I hadn’t lost the flat, I doubt I would ever have become involved with Ronan’s different projects, nor followed other paths.

Ronan, meanwhile had been trying to reach me at Oonagh’s and eventually found out I’d moved. I had a new telephone installed in the Housing Association flat and he was one of my first callers. When I told him what happened and the state of the place I’d been housed in, he offered his spare bedroom to Simon and me. It was typical of his generosity. If he had something he could give, he did. I mentioned Ronan’s offer to Oonagh and she said he once gave his spare bedroom to two little old men, who ended up living there with him for years (but they routinely fed Ronan, apparently providing him with tasty meals).

I thanked Ronan and told him I planned to stay where I was. He suggested I should start working for him, but I told him I had a day job and extra work at nights over the weekend so I didn’t have the time.

I had a background in classical and modern ballet from Australia and had hoped to break into that world in the UK. The macho Aussie journalists I lived with briefly in WC2 put paid to that idea. I was too short to gain a spot in ballet companies as they had height restrictions of 5’5” to 5’8”. I was only 5’2”. Dougie Squires Second Generation group was the only dance troupe that didn’t have height requirements. I obtained an audition with them, but the men at the Aussie house decided they wouldn’t let me go. They had this warped view that dancers became ‘sluts’ and didn’t want to see that happen to me. They also didn’t believe it was the right kind of life for a young child to be dragged all over the country without a settled home. I thought that while Simon was young it was manageable. As he grew, I knew that wouldn’t be the case, but hoped to have made inroads into the industry by then to find a London based job.

The men locked me into my room in the house and hid all my dance gear (leotards, tights etc) so that I couldn’t attend the audition. I was furious as it was my only chance. These men used to sit and watch Top of the Pops every week and when Pan’s People came on, they’d be calling out ’slut’, ‘whore’ to the women in the dance group. I never understood it and no amount of arguing with them would make them change their minds.

When my potential dance career disappeared out of the window, I began thinking of other options. In 1972 I had landed a job with IPC Magazines, as part of a team in the ‘Offers’ section, doing the reader’s special offers in Woman’s Own, Ideal Home and Woman’s Journal. I considered a writing career – becoming a features writer in the magazine division. I was already a proficient typist. As a teenager I’d taught myself on a typewriter my grandmother gave me together with an ancient typing exercise book. IPC sent me on a new speedwriting course which was held for an hour each weekday. I had to sacrifice my lunch hour to attend it. However, I soon realised from my trips into the different magazines that this was a cut-throat world where you had to start at the bottom and I couldn’t see it fitting in with a young child. I was offered a sub-editor’s job on Woman’s Own where you had to work until 8pm two nights a week. As it wouldn’t have fitted my life with Simon, I declined the offer and remained with the Offers Department.

Next, I considered going to university and studying for a history degree. I had been studying A level History at home of an evening. But I decided I’d miss the dance part of my life too much. The ideal solution was to combine my two loves, history and dance. I could teach them at secondary level. As I no longer had to worry about paying a mortgage, I applied for teacher-training college. My qualifications from school in Australia weren’t recognised, so I had to sit a ‘Special Entry’ examination at London University. Following further tests in English and Maths at the college campus, I was offered a place to start at Southland’s College in Wimbledon in late September 1974. I would be studying history and dance at a degree equivalent level. I didn’t realise at the time that these courses didn’t hold the same kudos as a History degree would have.

The college placement offer I received was dependent on my gaining some experience with young teenagers that I had to report back on. I began volunteering with West Hampstead Action Committee (WHAC) while still at IPC but then decided to pack in that job in the spring of ‘74 so I could become more involved in activities and meetings with WHAC. WHAC were a voluntary group dealing with young people who had been permanently excluded from secondary school. I spent a few days a week on WHAC work, picked up temporary bookkeeping work and also continued with the evening work I had already been doing for some years, although at a different location by this time. I know there’s no point in looking back over life and regretting decisions we make, but I often wished I’d remained at IPC until starting college or made different choices. 1974 turned out to be the worst year of my life – especially the months between March and September. It would take several chapters to explain it all and it is not particularly relevant to my Caroline journey, so I will not do so here. For those who might be interested I will add appendix chapters where I relate those experiences. It encompasses a social era that one hopes is no longer present today.

Back in the 70s there were grants available for higher education. The Greater London Council (GLC) offered me a grant of £13 per week and all college fees paid for. At the time I thought I was so lucky to be receiving it, but it didn’t provide me with enough to cover all my costs so I had to find work. What I didn’t realise was that the GLC were not giving me any allowances for Simon. They also failed to tell me that there was a division in Social Security that would give students like me a child allowance of £6.50 a week – throughout the year. I didn’t find this out until well into my third year. Of course, they wouldn’t backdate it, so I lost a considerable amount of money due to the prejudices the GLC had towards ‘unmarried’ mothers. My friend Brenda enrolled in North London University to do a degree in the autumn of 1977 following the completion of my course in June the same year. She was to receive a grant of £55 per week from the GLC against the approximate £٢٠ I received the year prior. Because she had been married and had a young child, the GLC paid her the full grant. Years later (in the early 80s) when a friend of mine became a member of the first Women’s Committee formed at the GLC, I approached her and asked her to find out whether the GLC still had this policy towards unmarried mothers. They did. The committee took the case up. The GLC bombarded them with documents that must have been almost a foot high, justifying their reasons for this discrimination and refusing to make any changes. It was unbelievable. When grants came to an end under Tony Blair in the 90s, it was no longer relevant. I wonder how many people’s lives were affected by this discrimination; how many women were unable to undertake a higher education course due to being offered such low grants. Some wouldn’t have been able to face the challenges. I almost didn’t start the journey as I knew it was going to be tough. But after emerging from the horrors I encountered in the months, weeks and days prior to my course starting, it was one of the main things that kept me going. I was determined.

Once I started college, I took a job three nights a week at the Nomad Club in Paddington. They had a hostel above the club which largely catered to Australian, New Zealand and South African backpackers. I worked on reception three nights a week where during the hours of 7 – 11 pm all was quiet so I was able to study and work on essays. At 11pm the basement club came to life until 2am when I knocked off. When the snack bar franchise in the club became available, I applied for that offering club goers, burgers, lamb kebabs or toasted sandwiches on Thursday, Friday and Saturday Nights. That meant I was working six nights a week.

After splitting up with her partner, my friend Brenda had moved into my short life flat with her five-year-old daughter Claudia. Brenda babysat while I worked on the reception job. I hired a babysitter for the other three nights so Brenda could work in the snack bar with me. It was tough. I would rise at 7 am and get Simon ready for nursery. Then head off to college for the day. Back home after college I would feed and bathe the two children and put them to bed before heading off to my evening job. I was lucky if I had four hours sleep a night. On Thursday mornings I rose several hours earlier to travel to Smithfield meat market where I bought meat for the snack bar at wholesale prices.

Ronan called me for a quick chat every so often – usually over the weekend – and every time we spoke, he tried to persuade me to work for him. I hadn’t told him anything about my nightmare months that year. With my busy schedule I had little available time. Saturday during the day was for shopping, housework and time with the kids. Sunday was for the kids and study in the evening. But with no lectures on a Friday afternoon I eventually said, ‘Okay I can offer you Friday afternoons.’

3

Ronan asked me to call in to his flat on my return from college the following Friday afternoon after I agreed to join his workforce. It was an easy diversion to Chelsea on my journey from Wimbledon, where the college was located, to where I had just moved to in South Hampstead. The short life property I had been living in in West Hampstead was due to be demolished so the council re-housed me in a basement/garden flat a short distance away in South Hampstead. It was also only a one bedroom flat – but with large rooms, Sonny (Oonagh’s husband) later helped me to split the bedroom into two.

The particular project that convinced me to work for Ronan was the Kennedy/King movie. He knew I was interested in the three icons (Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Martin Luther King) and I was intrigued as to what he thought I could contribute to the film.

After ringing his bell, there was a delay at the flat entrance, one that was to become a standard procedure in ensuing years. Ronan would only admit visitors or bell ringers if he recognised them. This necessitated a discreet peeping out of the curtains to ascertain who was there. He didn’t always answer to those he knew either. Not unless he was expecting them. He didn’t appreciate unexpected visitors.

Ronan’s raised ground floor flat was essentially a square box. A hallway ran down the middle of it; to the left there was a small galley kitchen (which had a door that opened on to a small exterior yard surrounded by the flats), a bathroom and the second double bedroom. To the right, which faced the road at the front, was the lounge and the larger bedroom.

When I arrived at his flat, I was introduced to a man called Chris Moore. I recall him being a quiet, dark haired, good looking giant of a man who towered over both Ronan and I.

‘I want you, Chris and Oonagh to be the directors of a film company,’ Ronan said. He had paperwork all ready for Chris and I to sign.

The Company was to be called ‘Research Educational Systems Limited (Films Branch UK)’. I naively asked Ronan what other branches the company had.

He looked at me with a confused expression and then once it dawned on him, he burst out laughing. ‘You’re joking?’ he asked. I wasn’t. The name implied that there were other branches to Research Educational Systems. I wasn’t familiar with Ronan’s way of operating at the time. Of course, there were no other branches. I don’t know who came up with this unwieldy name for the company – he might have bought a company ‘off the shelf’. With the name being a bit of a mouthful, myself and other staff tended to shorten it to Research Educational Films (hereafter referred to as REF) in subsequent years when communicating verbally with film laboratories or other companies.

‘What would you expect us to do as directors of this film company?’

‘Chris won’t be doing anything, Ronan said. ‘He will simply sign papers each year for the company returns. Oonagh might have some involvement but you will be the main active director.’

This surprised me. ‘And what would I be doing?’

‘Placing official orders for footage, dealing with the accounts – you’re a qualified bookkeeper aren’t you (yes I was from earlier training in Australia in the years after I left school and I had imparted this information to Ronan in one of our previous meetings), paying bills, – you will need to open a bank account to deal with those and paying the staff wages every Friday afternoon. I’ll tell you about them in a minute.’

And here he snuck in another little task. ‘But before you go and pay them on Fridays, I would also like you to rotate around all the record companies each Friday afternoon to collect new album releases that we can send out to the ship. It wouldn’t take you long to do that – you don’t have to go the same ones every week.’

So, he wanted me to do work for Radio Caroline as well. Something he’d been angling at for more than a year.

‘How does that work then?’ I asked him.

‘I’ll give you the names of all the A & R guys you need to make contact with and they will give you the new releases.’

‘Make contact with them by phone?’

‘Yes, you’ll need to mention you’re collecting the records for Radio Caroline.’

‘Call them at my own expense?’ I asked him. He knew I always had a phone connected wherever I lived so that I could keep in touch with my family in Australia. It was not cheap though and I was a student, plus I was out most days during working office hours. I thought this was going to prove difficult. I had an aversion to public phones and hated using them after being unexpectedly and brutally assaulted by some older teenage girls while I was using one at the age of 11. It was both comical and tragic watching me attempt to use one. It could prove problematic for this task.‘How much are you going to pay me for this?’ I asked him.

‘I can give you £10 each Friday for your work. I will give you the odd extra tenner to cover petrol and other expenses.’

It seemed reasonable. I looked at the paperwork he placed before me and noticed my name had been written as L. Gilbert. Chris was listed as C. Moore, Oonagh’s as O. Leigh (her former married name).

‘Why not my full name?’ I asked.

‘There’s no need to put first names or middle names and their initials,’ he said.

I shrugged, not realising that there was another agenda linked to his reasoning for this. An agenda I wasn’t to discover for some years.

Included in the paperwork was a contract from a company in Lichtenstein who would transfer money from there directly into the bank account which he wanted me to open. It gave a breakdown of the role REF would play in making the film on behalf of the Lichtenstein company and what it would receive in return for doing so. I can’t recall all of those details, but I believe REF was to receive a percentage of all the profits once the film was released and had sole distribution rights for the UK. Not all the forms could be completed that day as the registered address had to be decided upon. Subsequently the registered office was located at Gray’s Inn – with the

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Publication Date: 07-08-2023
ISBN: 978-3-7554-4650-7

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