PEBBLE
THEATRE |
8 |
8 - TO BE EDITED
Having its beginning in London of 1961, the self-authored fables of Ronan O'Rahilly suddenly vanish for a time until they reemerge regarding vague references to an acting school, a night club called 'The Scene' and a teenage Hammond organ playing singer named Georgie Fame. Many other names from the early days of the Sixties popular music world are also sprinkled around like fairy dust to give sparkle to his story. But what we want to know is what really happened after he arrived in London?
Problem one is trying to determine how and where he arrived in London, as well as how he travelled, was it by sea, or by air? Where was his point of departure in the Republic of Ireland? According to his own narrative he appeared at a time, day, week and month as yet undetermined. But, according to Ronan O'Rahilly it was at a time, day, week and month during 1961, and that gives us twelve months to examine for evidentiary details.
Problem one is trying to determine how and where he arrived in London, as well as how he travelled, was it by sea, or by air? Where was his point of departure in the Republic of Ireland? According to his own narrative he appeared at a time, day, week and month as yet undetermined. But, according to Ronan O'Rahilly it was at a time, day, week and month during 1961, and that gives us twelve months to examine for evidentiary details.
Birth of a twisted fable with dark overtones
With that murky beginning we are next told about his desire to become a method actor, and rather than join one of the existing schools of method acting, Ronan O'Rahilly claims to have started his own. Again, details from him are scant.
Then he begins rubbing shoulders with pop singers and bands who are all trying to get exposure in order to find fame and fortune. But Ronan O'Rahilly's interest is drawn to a teenage performer who is playing at a venue catering for Black U.S. servicemen stationed in England. It is a rather strange venue because it comes into existence after its hosting music club has closed for the night. The next thing we are told is that Ronan O'Rahilly has started his own night club called 'The Scene'. Then its back to that young singer and organ player whose name is Georgie Fame.
Ronan takes pity on Georgie Fame because he can't get a recording contract, so Ronan makes a demo record and takes it to the established record companies as well as BBC and 'Radio Luxembourg' management and asks for airplay. They laugh at him. Undaunted, Ronan O'Rahilly announces that he will start his own radio station and play his own record of Georgie Fame.
Ronan bumps into an Australian music publisher and producer of his own private record labels. His name is Allan James Crawford and he both tells Ronan O'Rahilly of his own plans, and shows him written documentation about starting a radio station on board a ship which he plans to anchor it off the southeast coastline of England, within audible reach of London. Having been given a copy of these plans by Crawford, Ronan O'Rahilly is supposed to take them to his rich father in Ireland and get him to invest enough money to make Crawford's dreams come true.
But Ronan O'Rahilly double-crosses Allan James Crawford, suddenly he has his own ship and radio station. He has even gone to the USA and bought a set of transmitters, and while on his way there by plane, he saw a photo-spread in a publication about the 5 or 6 years-old daughter of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Ronan immediately falls in love with this toddler named Caroline, and named both his ship and his radio station after her, and lo and behold, 'Radio Caroline' was born on March 27, 1964 with its first test transmission off Harwich, England.
Well, that's the fable, but what is the truth?
Then he begins rubbing shoulders with pop singers and bands who are all trying to get exposure in order to find fame and fortune. But Ronan O'Rahilly's interest is drawn to a teenage performer who is playing at a venue catering for Black U.S. servicemen stationed in England. It is a rather strange venue because it comes into existence after its hosting music club has closed for the night. The next thing we are told is that Ronan O'Rahilly has started his own night club called 'The Scene'. Then its back to that young singer and organ player whose name is Georgie Fame.
Ronan takes pity on Georgie Fame because he can't get a recording contract, so Ronan makes a demo record and takes it to the established record companies as well as BBC and 'Radio Luxembourg' management and asks for airplay. They laugh at him. Undaunted, Ronan O'Rahilly announces that he will start his own radio station and play his own record of Georgie Fame.
Ronan bumps into an Australian music publisher and producer of his own private record labels. His name is Allan James Crawford and he both tells Ronan O'Rahilly of his own plans, and shows him written documentation about starting a radio station on board a ship which he plans to anchor it off the southeast coastline of England, within audible reach of London. Having been given a copy of these plans by Crawford, Ronan O'Rahilly is supposed to take them to his rich father in Ireland and get him to invest enough money to make Crawford's dreams come true.
But Ronan O'Rahilly double-crosses Allan James Crawford, suddenly he has his own ship and radio station. He has even gone to the USA and bought a set of transmitters, and while on his way there by plane, he saw a photo-spread in a publication about the 5 or 6 years-old daughter of U.S. President John F. Kennedy. Ronan immediately falls in love with this toddler named Caroline, and named both his ship and his radio station after her, and lo and behold, 'Radio Caroline' was born on March 27, 1964 with its first test transmission off Harwich, England.
Well, that's the fable, but what is the truth?
O3X
When Ronan O'Rahilly arrived in London during 1961, he gravitated towards the underclass, who were not necessarily the lower class of the population. Some were extremely wealthy and powerful individuals. The underclass was composed of individuals who were excluded from 'polite' Society membership. They belonged to England's Establishment.
If you were a climber in those days but without admission papers to the Establishment, then you would seek refuge among the underclass who had money and not necessarily concerned with how they amassed it. In some ways the underclass ran parallel to the Establishment upper class, because money, sex and stimulants were the modus operandi of both categories. But, whereas the Establishment was primarily a bigoted and racist gathering following traditional fascist overtones, the underclass swirled around gangsters who were not doctrinaire, or opposed to variants in skin color. Both found the roots in Italy.
However, it did have one mandated rule for admission: loyalty. That was the key to maintaining secrecy. This meant that it was a 'crime' to tell the upperclass what the underclass were doing, unless of course it was to inform a member of the upperclass who staddrled the fence as an accepted member of the underclass. Sometimes that kind of duplicity was necessary in order to obtain sexual services and drug stimulants. But that is as far as class mixing went.
The Police could be bought, and they were bought, but the press which served up mass media to the hoi polloi were a different matter. Reporters could not be trusted because they survived on leaked information which could be blown-up into screaming headlines that sold mainly tabloid-sized newspapers. In the days of the early Sixties, broadsheets still represented the so-called 'quality' press which tried to keep 'gutter' topics within check, by placing such items in a semi-sneering manner as news that was not really fit to be read by 'our kind of people', but they should be aware of such goings-on.
If you were a climber in those days but without admission papers to the Establishment, then you would seek refuge among the underclass who had money and not necessarily concerned with how they amassed it. In some ways the underclass ran parallel to the Establishment upper class, because money, sex and stimulants were the modus operandi of both categories. But, whereas the Establishment was primarily a bigoted and racist gathering following traditional fascist overtones, the underclass swirled around gangsters who were not doctrinaire, or opposed to variants in skin color. Both found the roots in Italy.
However, it did have one mandated rule for admission: loyalty. That was the key to maintaining secrecy. This meant that it was a 'crime' to tell the upperclass what the underclass were doing, unless of course it was to inform a member of the upperclass who staddrled the fence as an accepted member of the underclass. Sometimes that kind of duplicity was necessary in order to obtain sexual services and drug stimulants. But that is as far as class mixing went.
The Police could be bought, and they were bought, but the press which served up mass media to the hoi polloi were a different matter. Reporters could not be trusted because they survived on leaked information which could be blown-up into screaming headlines that sold mainly tabloid-sized newspapers. In the days of the early Sixties, broadsheets still represented the so-called 'quality' press which tried to keep 'gutter' topics within check, by placing such items in a semi-sneering manner as news that was not really fit to be read by 'our kind of people', but they should be aware of such goings-on.
Unfortunately for us, and for anyone else who is seeking to unravel the mysteries of the Sixties that both the upper and under classes wanted to conceal, there still remains in place many false leads, and verifiable factual details are still difficult to find. Therefore we have to run with what we can have, because waiting for more evidence does not necessarily mean that it will be found. In fact, it is more likely that someone will read these words who may be able to contribute additional information as a result of personal contact with first hand knowledge.
EVENT: ARRIVAL IN LONDON DURING 1961
The duplicitous nature of the British Establishment of 1961 is adequately illustrated by the life of John Howard Cordle, the Conservative Party Member of Parliament since 1959, for Bournemouth East and Christchurch. During the time that he was a sitting member of the House of Commons, Cordle had a lot to say about alcoholic drinking by men who spent time to watch young girls shed their clothing. Cordle said:
"the wind of change of change in our affluent society had brought a gust of lust which this country had never seen before. Loose more behaviour was to a large extent the result of permitting strip tease clubs. Describing a visit he paid to one the clubs, he said: There were 30 to 35 men, who seemed decent types, looking at a show which was a disgrace. Young girls in their late teens were stripping garments from their bodies and doing uninhibited things. The men did not seem enamoured and one or two left before half an hour." Daily Telegraph, Monday, June 20, 1961 - reporting on Parliament the day before.
As we will reveal, it was not the fact that young girls in their late teens were creating sexual fantasies to gratify the primitive needs of older men that upset Cordle, what seemed to bother him is that men of his age did not treat the same drive that he had to cope with as an abnormal desire unknown to the majority of males. Cordle was typical of the two-faced manifestation of British life at the dawn of the Sixties.
Many writers treat that decade as a speciality cake in which layers are examined out of context to other content. This is very true of the beginning of the do-it-yourself and copycat musical phenomenon. The fact that there were a lot of kids about the same age in Britain, had a lot more to do with Adolph Hitler dropping bombs on the cheap and dingy housing that formed employee dwellings in many UK communities, than it did with planned parenting. To put it bluntly sex was the one act that could provide pleasure without immediate cost in those awful times. Payment came nine months later when babies began appearing in greater and greater numbers.
The years rolled on in the UK, but unlike the USA which was not bombed in revenge by the Nazis or anyone else, their homes and their factories remained intact and switched from wartime production to peacetime commodities. Another major difference was in the source of law. In the USA it rested with its written constitution. In the UK it rested with a privileged family and their attached hangers-on called the 'Establishment'. Cordle was moving in and around the edges of that Society and appearing to "Praise the Lord" while doing so. It was Hypocrisy Heaven,
But in the streets of the Soho district just off the prime shopping avenues of Oxford and Regent Streets that were pinnacled by the majesty of BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, there were dingy and squalid little shops and flats where sex in print and sex in person was the main offering, along with a sprinkling of eating establishments. This was the stomping ground of condemnation expressed by John Howard Cordle who was born in 1912, and was typical of one part of the Establishment that was conflicted by what he was supposed to believe in, and what his body and brain wanted him to enjoy.
Many writers treat that decade as a speciality cake in which layers are examined out of context to other content. This is very true of the beginning of the do-it-yourself and copycat musical phenomenon. The fact that there were a lot of kids about the same age in Britain, had a lot more to do with Adolph Hitler dropping bombs on the cheap and dingy housing that formed employee dwellings in many UK communities, than it did with planned parenting. To put it bluntly sex was the one act that could provide pleasure without immediate cost in those awful times. Payment came nine months later when babies began appearing in greater and greater numbers.
The years rolled on in the UK, but unlike the USA which was not bombed in revenge by the Nazis or anyone else, their homes and their factories remained intact and switched from wartime production to peacetime commodities. Another major difference was in the source of law. In the USA it rested with its written constitution. In the UK it rested with a privileged family and their attached hangers-on called the 'Establishment'. Cordle was moving in and around the edges of that Society and appearing to "Praise the Lord" while doing so. It was Hypocrisy Heaven,
But in the streets of the Soho district just off the prime shopping avenues of Oxford and Regent Streets that were pinnacled by the majesty of BBC Broadcasting House in Portland Place, there were dingy and squalid little shops and flats where sex in print and sex in person was the main offering, along with a sprinkling of eating establishments. This was the stomping ground of condemnation expressed by John Howard Cordle who was born in 1912, and was typical of one part of the Establishment that was conflicted by what he was supposed to believe in, and what his body and brain wanted him to enjoy.
By 1961, Cordle who as born 1912, he was approximately 49 years of age; Bill Haley who sang 'Rock around the clock', was born in 1925 which means that he was 36; Elvis Presley who swept Bill Haley away, was born in 1935 and was 26 years of age, and the British skiffle upstart of Lonnie Donegan who was born in 1931, was 30. His washboard follow-on of Chas McDevitt was born in 1935 and had reached the age of 26. The Rolling Stones' Bill Wyman was born in 1936, and so he was 25, while Marty Wilde was born in 1939, and was 22 years of age.
But the kids of World War II were John Lennon, Ring Starr, Cliff Richard and Adam Faith, because they were all born in 1940, and that puts their ages at about 21 in 1961. That is also about the same time that Ronan O'Rahilly who was born, except that the Nazis were not, generally speaking, dropping bombs upon the housing of Irish citizens.
Back on the island of Great Britain in 1941, the fight for survival was well underway and no doubt the parents of Charlie Watts and Eric Burdon both have tales to tell. Their offspring would be age 20 in 1961. Then came Paul McCartney in 1942 who would be age 19, and Mick Jagger, George Harrison and Keith Richards the following year of 1943 which puts each of them at 18 years of age. By the time we get to 1945 and the end of the world war, and the birth of Eric Clapton, he was 16 years of age and facing the biological demands of his teenage years.
But the kids of World War II were John Lennon, Ring Starr, Cliff Richard and Adam Faith, because they were all born in 1940, and that puts their ages at about 21 in 1961. That is also about the same time that Ronan O'Rahilly who was born, except that the Nazis were not, generally speaking, dropping bombs upon the housing of Irish citizens.
Back on the island of Great Britain in 1941, the fight for survival was well underway and no doubt the parents of Charlie Watts and Eric Burdon both have tales to tell. Their offspring would be age 20 in 1961. Then came Paul McCartney in 1942 who would be age 19, and Mick Jagger, George Harrison and Keith Richards the following year of 1943 which puts each of them at 18 years of age. By the time we get to 1945 and the end of the world war, and the birth of Eric Clapton, he was 16 years of age and facing the biological demands of his teenage years.
We have moved along a corridor of time tracing a string of males beginning with dissipated hormone requests made on on the body of John Cordle, to the aggressive demands being made on Eric Clapton. Yet here is the clash of opposites. Cordle was the Establishment in so many ways, but both his words and his actions belied the nonsense that he was trying to impose on a generation born in war when nothing mattered except a sexual act of the moment, verses the centuries of pontificating tomfoolery and hypocrisy that the Establishment has also practiced: Don't do as we do, do as we tell you. In fact, it went further than that to a denial that the Establishment were anything but as honest and pure as they claimed that its Church-State Establishment represented to the world. That is, so long as you were not of a darker skin color or an alien belief system because if you were, you had no need to peer around curtains, you saw the hypocrisy up close and in person.
But in the United Kingdom of 1961, the Establishment's charade was about to be exposed, and to save their day, Peter Rachman became their chosen scapegoat. Ronan O'Rahilly saw hole in the fabric covering the Establishment, and he crawled in.
links to both the clubland that enticed O'Rahilly where drugs were marketed to teens and twenties for pleasure, and the world that emerged in successive years that gave birth to offshore 'pirate' radio as well. But Cordle added one more cherry to the top of his cake of hypocrisy, and that was his close ties to the State Church of England.
When John Cordle, who has died aged 92, became the Conservative MP for Bournemouth East and Christchurch in 1959, he seemed to be set for life. His purchase that year of the Church Of England Newspaper had given him a megaphone. He had already established his churchiness on the Commission on Evangelism and in the Church Assembly. But this had not unveiled the enthusiasm for sin-bashing - he was a friend of the American evangelist Billy Graham - that he showed as a publisher.
It was his sanctimony that was to be his ultimate undoing in 1977 when he was forced to resign for his part in the Poulson financial scandal. Not long after his adoption in Bournemouth, the Chichester Conservative MP Henry Kirby had told me that local Tory women activists were up in arms about this success - by a man they dared not leave alone with their early-teen daughters. Unlike the other two MPs involved with Poulson (Reginald Maudling and Albert Roberts), Cordle felt forced to resign because he knew fellow MPs would not show him any mercy.
Meanwhile, at the beginning of the 1960s, he was mounting attacks on divorce and discipline in the home, and advocating a decisive approach to juvenile delinquency. In 1960, he served as an usher at Princess Margaret's wedding. By 1961, in the Commons, he was demanding legislation to control the BBC's "un-Christian" plays. He told of his investigation of strip clubs: "I was really appalled to think this country had something which I had seen before the war in Montparnasse and Montmartre."
In 1963, he made himself the chief Tory scourge of the then disgraced John Profumo, an "affront to the Christian conscience of the nation". He followed this by trying to stop the publication of excerpts from the "Black Diaries" of Sir Roger Casement, the diplomat hanged for high treason in 1916. Cordle also demanded that the newly published unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover be "dumped into the channel" - blaming the "increase in venereal diseases among teenagers" on "filthy books".
He did not change tack when Harold Wilson's government took over in 1964 and, by 1967, he was transformed into the hate figure of Auberon Waugh in Private Eye and the Daily Telegraph and other defenders of the Biafran regime that was rebelling against Nigeria's federal government. Like Wilson, Cordle supported Nigeria's central government, with which he and his family business had close connections. When the Biafran regime collapsed, Cordle was the first British MP permitted into the area by the Nigerian government.
But by 1976, his contrived front of morality began to unravel. That summer, the Observer published a 1965 letter from Cordle to the architect and entrepreneur John Poulson. In this, Cordle, stressing how he had pushed Poulson's interests through his political contacts, urged that an agreement be finalised about the money that Poulson had promised him. He asked for £500 a year, later increased to £1,000. MPs' salaries were then £3,250.
This was just an early leak from the lengthy Poulson investigation, which resulted in the jailing of Poulson, Newcastle councillor and regional power broker T Dan Smith, and several civil servants. Cordle was criticised by the resulting special Commons select committee. He made a two-minute tearful statement announcing he was resigning his seat, rather than face a vote to suspend him for six months without pay.
Before Poulson, he had suffered more publicity from attacks by his wives than from his political opponents. He married his first wife Grace in 1938, they divorced in 1956, and in 1964 she demanded that the divorce court jail him for breaking custody orders.
He married his second wife, Vanessa, in 1957 and they divorced in 1971. She went public when he used the police and a security guard to ban his mother-in-law from the family home. He later legally suppressed her book, A Woman Crucified.
Cordle was born in London, and educated at the City of London School. He then went into the family business in New Cross, supplying linen to hotels and hospitals. During the war, he served in the RAF.
Returning to the business, he found an accountant had fiddled the books, forcing him to pay more than £60,000 in unpaid taxes. Despite this, its profits, including those from West African exports, enabled Cordle to live well. He unsuccessfully contested Wolverhampton North East in 1949 and the Wrekin in 1951. Then came Bournemouth East.
After his disgrace, the press homed in on drug scandals involving his son Rupert and daughter Sophie. As for Cordle, it remains a mystery why morality obsessed him, although he blamed it on his encounter with Billy Graham, and kept playing his role. In 1994, when living in a magnificent 13th-century home in Salisbury Close, a neighbour of Sir Edward Heath, he thunderously resigned from the Salisbury Conservatives, in protest against the vote of his local MP, in favour of equalising homosexual consent at 16.
He leaves his third wife, Terttu (they married in 1976) and their two sons; three sons from his first marriage (a son and a daughter from which predeceased him); and a son and three daughters from his second marriage.
· John Howard Cordle, businessman and politician, born October 11 1912; died November 23 2004
But in the United Kingdom of 1961, the Establishment's charade was about to be exposed, and to save their day, Peter Rachman became their chosen scapegoat. Ronan O'Rahilly saw hole in the fabric covering the Establishment, and he crawled in.
links to both the clubland that enticed O'Rahilly where drugs were marketed to teens and twenties for pleasure, and the world that emerged in successive years that gave birth to offshore 'pirate' radio as well. But Cordle added one more cherry to the top of his cake of hypocrisy, and that was his close ties to the State Church of England.
When John Cordle, who has died aged 92, became the Conservative MP for Bournemouth East and Christchurch in 1959, he seemed to be set for life. His purchase that year of the Church Of England Newspaper had given him a megaphone. He had already established his churchiness on the Commission on Evangelism and in the Church Assembly. But this had not unveiled the enthusiasm for sin-bashing - he was a friend of the American evangelist Billy Graham - that he showed as a publisher.
It was his sanctimony that was to be his ultimate undoing in 1977 when he was forced to resign for his part in the Poulson financial scandal. Not long after his adoption in Bournemouth, the Chichester Conservative MP Henry Kirby had told me that local Tory women activists were up in arms about this success - by a man they dared not leave alone with their early-teen daughters. Unlike the other two MPs involved with Poulson (Reginald Maudling and Albert Roberts), Cordle felt forced to resign because he knew fellow MPs would not show him any mercy.
Meanwhile, at the beginning of the 1960s, he was mounting attacks on divorce and discipline in the home, and advocating a decisive approach to juvenile delinquency. In 1960, he served as an usher at Princess Margaret's wedding. By 1961, in the Commons, he was demanding legislation to control the BBC's "un-Christian" plays. He told of his investigation of strip clubs: "I was really appalled to think this country had something which I had seen before the war in Montparnasse and Montmartre."
In 1963, he made himself the chief Tory scourge of the then disgraced John Profumo, an "affront to the Christian conscience of the nation". He followed this by trying to stop the publication of excerpts from the "Black Diaries" of Sir Roger Casement, the diplomat hanged for high treason in 1916. Cordle also demanded that the newly published unexpurgated Lady Chatterley's Lover be "dumped into the channel" - blaming the "increase in venereal diseases among teenagers" on "filthy books".
He did not change tack when Harold Wilson's government took over in 1964 and, by 1967, he was transformed into the hate figure of Auberon Waugh in Private Eye and the Daily Telegraph and other defenders of the Biafran regime that was rebelling against Nigeria's federal government. Like Wilson, Cordle supported Nigeria's central government, with which he and his family business had close connections. When the Biafran regime collapsed, Cordle was the first British MP permitted into the area by the Nigerian government.
But by 1976, his contrived front of morality began to unravel. That summer, the Observer published a 1965 letter from Cordle to the architect and entrepreneur John Poulson. In this, Cordle, stressing how he had pushed Poulson's interests through his political contacts, urged that an agreement be finalised about the money that Poulson had promised him. He asked for £500 a year, later increased to £1,000. MPs' salaries were then £3,250.
This was just an early leak from the lengthy Poulson investigation, which resulted in the jailing of Poulson, Newcastle councillor and regional power broker T Dan Smith, and several civil servants. Cordle was criticised by the resulting special Commons select committee. He made a two-minute tearful statement announcing he was resigning his seat, rather than face a vote to suspend him for six months without pay.
Before Poulson, he had suffered more publicity from attacks by his wives than from his political opponents. He married his first wife Grace in 1938, they divorced in 1956, and in 1964 she demanded that the divorce court jail him for breaking custody orders.
He married his second wife, Vanessa, in 1957 and they divorced in 1971. She went public when he used the police and a security guard to ban his mother-in-law from the family home. He later legally suppressed her book, A Woman Crucified.
Cordle was born in London, and educated at the City of London School. He then went into the family business in New Cross, supplying linen to hotels and hospitals. During the war, he served in the RAF.
Returning to the business, he found an accountant had fiddled the books, forcing him to pay more than £60,000 in unpaid taxes. Despite this, its profits, including those from West African exports, enabled Cordle to live well. He unsuccessfully contested Wolverhampton North East in 1949 and the Wrekin in 1951. Then came Bournemouth East.
After his disgrace, the press homed in on drug scandals involving his son Rupert and daughter Sophie. As for Cordle, it remains a mystery why morality obsessed him, although he blamed it on his encounter with Billy Graham, and kept playing his role. In 1994, when living in a magnificent 13th-century home in Salisbury Close, a neighbour of Sir Edward Heath, he thunderously resigned from the Salisbury Conservatives, in protest against the vote of his local MP, in favour of equalising homosexual consent at 16.
He leaves his third wife, Terttu (they married in 1976) and their two sons; three sons from his first marriage (a son and a daughter from which predeceased him); and a son and three daughters from his second marriage.
· John Howard Cordle, businessman and politician, born October 11 1912; died November 23 2004
You may know a lot more about Peter Rachman than you might at first imagine. If you have seen the movie
be
In order to make sense of this story it is necessary to know who the players were, who the puppets were, and who the parasites were. The reason why nothing seems to be straightforward about this story, is because instead of clear-cut chronological biographies about the key people involved, readers have been confronted with a jumble-pile of events in which huge gaps have been left in the storyline.
However, there is no shortage of so-called 'experts' who are willing to tell all and sundry, for a fee of course, their own interpretation of the story behind the creation of 'Radio Caroline'. Their accounts now appear in a plethora of documentary programs, books and articles, and none of them are true and consequently none of them make sense. The authors of those works of misdirection either do not understand the story, or, worse still, they are playing along with a gameplan that was intended to obfuscate any chance of understanding what the actual story really is.
A good example is to be found in that dying breed of aging human beings who call themselves 'anoraks'. It is a description dreamed-up late in the day to describe fans who supported anarchy of the airwaves which they mistakenly believed was the original goal in the 1960s of offshore stations. While the word refers to a type of outer clothing providing a degree of insulation from cold weather, 'anoraks' as a cult seem to mirror quarrelling followers of the pseudo-messiah in the Monty Python film 'Life of Brian'.
In this story, the pseudo-messiah is Ronan O'Rahilly, and he is also the primary parasite!
In order to make sense of this story it is necessary to know who the players were, who the puppets were, and who the parasites were. The reason why nothing seems to be straightforward about this story, is because instead of clear-cut chronological biographies about the key people involved, readers have been confronted with a jumble-pile of events in which huge gaps have been left in the storyline.
However, there is no shortage of so-called 'experts' who are willing to tell all and sundry, for a fee of course, their own interpretation of the story behind the creation of 'Radio Caroline'. Their accounts now appear in a plethora of documentary programs, books and articles, and none of them are true and consequently none of them make sense. The authors of those works of misdirection either do not understand the story, or, worse still, they are playing along with a gameplan that was intended to obfuscate any chance of understanding what the actual story really is.
A good example is to be found in that dying breed of aging human beings who call themselves 'anoraks'. It is a description dreamed-up late in the day to describe fans who supported anarchy of the airwaves which they mistakenly believed was the original goal in the 1960s of offshore stations. While the word refers to a type of outer clothing providing a degree of insulation from cold weather, 'anoraks' as a cult seem to mirror quarrelling followers of the pseudo-messiah in the Monty Python film 'Life of Brian'.
In this story, the pseudo-messiah is Ronan O'Rahilly, and he is also the primary parasite!
Well, whadya know? It's not the Cap-it-ol Show!
During the latter part of the 1950s, Capitol Records bought time on the English language 'Radio Luxembourg' nighttime service which was originally called 'Luxembourg 2'. Its host was Canadian Ray Orchard who began with a fanfare and then a riff from the 'Main Title'. While it was playing, Ray would tell his listeners the names of the artists that he would be introducing from excerpts to their records. But it was his opening words that are relevant here, because Ray would ask listeners "Well, whadya know?", and while his answer was 'It's the Capitol Show!', our question remains a question to be answered by you.
Alan Bailey, who was the London recording engineer for 'Radio Luxembourg' programs, noted in his own book that his account is "seen through my eyes between 1958 and 1975." As an avid listener, one of our Trio began listening to '208' somewhere around 1956 when it truly was the 'Station of the Stars' because in carried a lot of US radio network programming, and not just record shows. Therefore the account of that period rendered by Alan Bailey, rests upon his own investigation into the years prior to his employment. Unfortunately, there are very few books that authentically document details of '208' programing in the 1950s, which means that it is necessary to find old program guides in order to discover what they were actually broadcasting. It is all about the timing of acquired knowledge relating to the past.
On June 25, 1973, US Senator Howard Baker posed a question to a witness about US President Richard Nixon. It was during the Watergate Hearings, and it is a question which has application to this investigation. Baker asked: "What did the President know and when did he know it?"
It is now time to ask our readers:
"What do you know about the advent of 'Radio Caroline' in 1964, and when did you first claim to know it?"
Alan Bailey, who was the London recording engineer for 'Radio Luxembourg' programs, noted in his own book that his account is "seen through my eyes between 1958 and 1975." As an avid listener, one of our Trio began listening to '208' somewhere around 1956 when it truly was the 'Station of the Stars' because in carried a lot of US radio network programming, and not just record shows. Therefore the account of that period rendered by Alan Bailey, rests upon his own investigation into the years prior to his employment. Unfortunately, there are very few books that authentically document details of '208' programing in the 1950s, which means that it is necessary to find old program guides in order to discover what they were actually broadcasting. It is all about the timing of acquired knowledge relating to the past.
On June 25, 1973, US Senator Howard Baker posed a question to a witness about US President Richard Nixon. It was during the Watergate Hearings, and it is a question which has application to this investigation. Baker asked: "What did the President know and when did he know it?"
It is now time to ask our readers:
"What do you know about the advent of 'Radio Caroline' in 1964, and when did you first claim to know it?"
Many people now confuse the timing of when they think that they first came to know about 'Radio Caroline'. Was it from information written after 1990, or was it from not the limited amount of information that was available prior to that date? Some were too young to remember anything about events in 1964, and therefore they assume that the information added after 1990 is a true representation of the information available prior to that date. But such is not the case.
Of the generation who were alive and cognisant of events that took place in 1964, many assume that the information published after 1990, is merely an additional extrapolation of previously available documentation. Therefore, for the benefit of everyone, it is necessary to separate the information known before 1990, from the information published after 1990, and to then ask why such a deluge of information suddenly became available?
Of the generation who were alive and cognisant of events that took place in 1964, many assume that the information published after 1990, is merely an additional extrapolation of previously available documentation. Therefore, for the benefit of everyone, it is necessary to separate the information known before 1990, from the information published after 1990, and to then ask why such a deluge of information suddenly became available?
To rely upon access to programs, books and articles that are now (2023) in current circulation is to absorb a fictitious revisionism of events, and then to accept it as true, when in fact it is fake. However, because a concerted attempt was made in and after 1990 to distort and mislead everyone about the events surrounding the arrival of 'Radio Caroline' in 1964, it is imperative that we now present for comparative study, both the limited general knowledge that was available in 1964, and the distorted version available after 1990.
However, it is plain that neither version is a true representation of factual reporting, and the 1990 version has simply made an understanding of what actually took place, even more difficult to comprehend, because in addition to those two versions, there is a third library of information which has remained partially hidden from view. While it is not readily apparent at first glance, by dedicated research it can be revealed for all to see.
This third version is not a fantasy story. It is the factually documented story of manufacturers, their subsidiaries, and their associated companies engaged in a mass media promulgation of a business plan. These documents are stored upon library shelves in their original printed format, and some have been digitalized and put Online. But to find this third story, you first have to know that it exists.
However, it is plain that neither version is a true representation of factual reporting, and the 1990 version has simply made an understanding of what actually took place, even more difficult to comprehend, because in addition to those two versions, there is a third library of information which has remained partially hidden from view. While it is not readily apparent at first glance, by dedicated research it can be revealed for all to see.
This third version is not a fantasy story. It is the factually documented story of manufacturers, their subsidiaries, and their associated companies engaged in a mass media promulgation of a business plan. These documents are stored upon library shelves in their original printed format, and some have been digitalized and put Online. But to find this third story, you first have to know that it exists.
Triple play: everything in threes
It seems that everything about 'Radio Caroline' from 1964 to 1967 comes in threes, and this includes both the authors, the primary subjects, ostensibly led by Ronan O'Rahilly, and this presentation.
The three main characters in the bogus version, in addition to Ronan O'Rahilly, are Stephen Christopher Moore and Ian Cowper Ross.
Uncovering the true identities of these three has been as difficult as it has been to uncover the three versions of this story. Two versions are false, and one of them is true. As this account progresses we will also reveal details about the lives of Ronan O'Rahilly, Stephen Christoper Moore and Ian Cowper Ross in order to reveal how they relate to each other, and how they relate to the false narrative.
The three main characters in the bogus version, in addition to Ronan O'Rahilly, are Stephen Christopher Moore and Ian Cowper Ross.
Uncovering the true identities of these three has been as difficult as it has been to uncover the three versions of this story. Two versions are false, and one of them is true. As this account progresses we will also reveal details about the lives of Ronan O'Rahilly, Stephen Christoper Moore and Ian Cowper Ross in order to reveal how they relate to each other, and how they relate to the false narrative.
The jumble sale
Our problem in presenting all three accounts within this work, has been, and still is, a question of how to reveal all three versions without creating such a confusing jumble of data that readers are no wiser after they have read it, because it was as an intentional jumble that the false narrative was sold to the unwitting public.
After careful consideration, it has now became obvious that the best way to explain these three versions is by revealing how we came to know of their existence, and to then explain how we began the process of investigating them and documenting our findings. However, there are two groups who for self-preservation interests, do not want this story to be told. Ironically, their camps are divided and their goals are not the same. One of these groups represents a fanatical adherence to the mythology spun by Ronan O'Rahilly, and the other one is attempting to build a new business by using the name of 'Radio Caroline', while denouncing Ronan O'Rahilly.
However, there is also another group who can best be described as a continuation of the ideas set in motion by John Reith in the 1920s. Reith was hired by a commercial cartel incorporated as the British Broadcasting Company Limited. It represented the financial interests of British and American manufacturers, plus hundreds of investors with interests in the broadcasting industry.
When the cartel called BBC Ltd was denied renewal of its broadcasting licenses, John Reith jumped aboard a new entity with the same initials and called the British Broadcasting Corporation. Meanwhile, Reith remained as Managing Director of the BBC cartel in order to kill it off in favor of the Crown chartered corporation. Today, that kind of insider trading and manipulative behavior would land a similar person in court. But Reith did all of this with the blessings of the British Crown, and the British Crown is the law, since the UK does not have a superior written constitution akin to the one governing the USA.
Reith strengthened his grip on broadcast mass media by becoming the lap dog puppet of British Crown interests which had control of the entire means of mass communication. In 1660, in the newly created Kingdom of England, King Charles II instituted a Post Office system to censor point-to-point communications by letter. Printing presses and publishers were also licensed, and those who dared to operate without a license were called 'pirates'.
Then, with the development of the electric telegraph came more legislation that began to incorporate every known means of both person-to-person and mass media communication. By 1964, the British Crown General Post Office (GPO), had control of everything.
Untangling this chaotic mess while still presenting it an easy-to-comprehend manner is a challenge, especially when it is our intention to reach the wider audience at large, and not just a classroom of students who are studying this topic as an academic subject. Perhaps the best way to do this is to retrace our own footsteps to reveal both why and how we became fascinated by a cover-up of such wide significance that it conceals a story of murder, mayhem and music that also includes preaching, politics and piracy.
It is a story that quickly affirms the notion that "yesterday never happened". That is, the yesterday that you were told was a part of your own life and the lives of your family members.
After careful consideration, it has now became obvious that the best way to explain these three versions is by revealing how we came to know of their existence, and to then explain how we began the process of investigating them and documenting our findings. However, there are two groups who for self-preservation interests, do not want this story to be told. Ironically, their camps are divided and their goals are not the same. One of these groups represents a fanatical adherence to the mythology spun by Ronan O'Rahilly, and the other one is attempting to build a new business by using the name of 'Radio Caroline', while denouncing Ronan O'Rahilly.
However, there is also another group who can best be described as a continuation of the ideas set in motion by John Reith in the 1920s. Reith was hired by a commercial cartel incorporated as the British Broadcasting Company Limited. It represented the financial interests of British and American manufacturers, plus hundreds of investors with interests in the broadcasting industry.
When the cartel called BBC Ltd was denied renewal of its broadcasting licenses, John Reith jumped aboard a new entity with the same initials and called the British Broadcasting Corporation. Meanwhile, Reith remained as Managing Director of the BBC cartel in order to kill it off in favor of the Crown chartered corporation. Today, that kind of insider trading and manipulative behavior would land a similar person in court. But Reith did all of this with the blessings of the British Crown, and the British Crown is the law, since the UK does not have a superior written constitution akin to the one governing the USA.
Reith strengthened his grip on broadcast mass media by becoming the lap dog puppet of British Crown interests which had control of the entire means of mass communication. In 1660, in the newly created Kingdom of England, King Charles II instituted a Post Office system to censor point-to-point communications by letter. Printing presses and publishers were also licensed, and those who dared to operate without a license were called 'pirates'.
Then, with the development of the electric telegraph came more legislation that began to incorporate every known means of both person-to-person and mass media communication. By 1964, the British Crown General Post Office (GPO), had control of everything.
Untangling this chaotic mess while still presenting it an easy-to-comprehend manner is a challenge, especially when it is our intention to reach the wider audience at large, and not just a classroom of students who are studying this topic as an academic subject. Perhaps the best way to do this is to retrace our own footsteps to reveal both why and how we became fascinated by a cover-up of such wide significance that it conceals a story of murder, mayhem and music that also includes preaching, politics and piracy.
It is a story that quickly affirms the notion that "yesterday never happened". That is, the yesterday that you were told was a part of your own life and the lives of your family members.
Fake News with a 'quality' presentation
Late on Friday evening of March 27, 1964, a ship anchored just outside of UK territorial waters and transmitted a test broadcast. The following day at Noon, transmissions emanating from this same ship announced they were test broadcasts on behalf of 'Radio Caroline'. The ship had been renamed and given the same eponymous first name as the station on board.
The Sunday editions of the British newspaper press began identifying 23 years-old Ronan O'Rahilly as the station spokesman. Some called him the Managing Director of the company responsible for the broadcasts. On the front page of the Sunday edition of the 'Observer' newspaper for March 29 , it stated that "The man behind 'Radio Caroline' is a 23-years-old Irish business man, Mr Ronan O'Rahilly ...."
The Sunday editions of the British newspaper press began identifying 23 years-old Ronan O'Rahilly as the station spokesman. Some called him the Managing Director of the company responsible for the broadcasts. On the front page of the Sunday edition of the 'Observer' newspaper for March 29 , it stated that "The man behind 'Radio Caroline' is a 23-years-old Irish business man, Mr Ronan O'Rahilly ...."
In the same news column it also stated that: "Mr Blevins, the Postmaster-General, said in the House of Commons on February 6, when questioned about 'Radio Caroline' ...."
But the trouble with that news report which appeared in a 'quality' British newspaper, is that while Mr Blevins did say that broadcasting from ships may be in violation of various international treaties, he did not make his comment on February 6, 1964, and neither did he say anything at all about 'Radio Caroline'.
According to 'Hansard' for February 5, 1964, Mr Blevins responded to a very general question about 'Commercial Radio Programmes (Ships)'. Mr Philip Hocking, MP for Coventry South asked ".... the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that plans are being made to broadcast commercial radio programmes to Britain from a ship moored off Harwich; and what action he proposes to take."
According to 'Hansard' for February 5, 1964, Mr Blevins responded to a very general question about 'Commercial Radio Programmes (Ships)'. Mr Philip Hocking, MP for Coventry South asked ".... the Postmaster-General whether he is aware that plans are being made to broadcast commercial radio programmes to Britain from a ship moored off Harwich; and what action he proposes to take."
This is but one example of bad reporting in one of the UK 'quality' Sunday newspapers. For whatever the reason, the reporter did not establish the veracity of his reference. However, since the story about 'Radio Caroline' had been immediately tied to the person of Ronan O'Rahilly, then the prior activities of Ronan O'Rahilly should reveal the background details regarding the creation of 'Radio Caroline'.
According to the broadcast admission by Ronan O'Rahilly when he later spoke on a Granada Television program, he said that he had arrived in London during 1961 with a small amount of money in his pockets. O'Rahilly claimed that one of the first things he did was to go to a London bank and borrow enough money to buy a suit in order to impress those he came into contact with in a business environment. Because his father was credit worthy, Ronan O'Rahilly had no difficulty in getting a small loan.
Nevertheless, from sometime in 1961 until March 27, 1964, the British press and its overseas news agencies all reported that Ronan O'Rahilly appeared to have raised enough capital to acquire a foreign ship; transmitting equipment, and hired a staff in a very short space of time. How was that possible?
According to the broadcast admission by Ronan O'Rahilly when he later spoke on a Granada Television program, he said that he had arrived in London during 1961 with a small amount of money in his pockets. O'Rahilly claimed that one of the first things he did was to go to a London bank and borrow enough money to buy a suit in order to impress those he came into contact with in a business environment. Because his father was credit worthy, Ronan O'Rahilly had no difficulty in getting a small loan.
Nevertheless, from sometime in 1961 until March 27, 1964, the British press and its overseas news agencies all reported that Ronan O'Rahilly appeared to have raised enough capital to acquire a foreign ship; transmitting equipment, and hired a staff in a very short space of time. How was that possible?
The British Establishment: "Them" and "Us"
In those early years of the 1960s, mainstream England did not take kindly to 'outsiders', and people of Irish heritage were not exactly welcomed with open arms. It was a country that sniffed in a prejudicial manner towards anyone who did not seem to be "one of us". That included everyone with a natural skin tone darker than anemic pink.
But for members of the Establishment it was a different matter. They lived in a world of their own making where same sex, unusual sex and sex as voyeurism were all part of their world. It was a closed Society world in which even racial differences could be accepted under certain circumstances, when viewed as esoteric presentations for limited enjoyment among the few, and where money was never mentioned, except by accountants out of necessity, and then only to their clients.
There was an exception to that financial rule of thumb, and it involved monetary exchanges relating to both law enforcement officials who could be bribed, and gang members who had a disdain for law when it was not of their own making. This monetary world circulated around the fringe of the Establishment, and it maintained a defensive rim. It also isolated the Establishment from the average person in England who occupied a semi-detached brick built house in England's suburbia, and it allowed Establishment members to live in a manner contrary to the hoi polloi, while appearing to preserve a traditional form of law and order. It worked as long as there was no 'bleed-though' transparency regarding the actual lives lived by the aristocratic Establishment.
Financial and political power was centered upon London, and when anyone referred to the British they were usually referring to people from England. People from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were assigned geographic quarters in the human mind, because only England and its capital city were of any importance, and therefore references to 'Brits' equalled a reference to English people. The flare-up in Northern Ireland had yet to begin in earnest, and in the 1960s the norms imposed by the State Church of England were adhered to by the hoi polloi.
To understand the real movements of Ronan O'Rahilly between the time of his arrival in 1961, and the first news items about his connection to 'Radio Caroline' in late March 1964, it is necessary to consider the chronology of events covering those years, and to do that we turn to our YesterCode for help.
But for members of the Establishment it was a different matter. They lived in a world of their own making where same sex, unusual sex and sex as voyeurism were all part of their world. It was a closed Society world in which even racial differences could be accepted under certain circumstances, when viewed as esoteric presentations for limited enjoyment among the few, and where money was never mentioned, except by accountants out of necessity, and then only to their clients.
There was an exception to that financial rule of thumb, and it involved monetary exchanges relating to both law enforcement officials who could be bribed, and gang members who had a disdain for law when it was not of their own making. This monetary world circulated around the fringe of the Establishment, and it maintained a defensive rim. It also isolated the Establishment from the average person in England who occupied a semi-detached brick built house in England's suburbia, and it allowed Establishment members to live in a manner contrary to the hoi polloi, while appearing to preserve a traditional form of law and order. It worked as long as there was no 'bleed-though' transparency regarding the actual lives lived by the aristocratic Establishment.
Financial and political power was centered upon London, and when anyone referred to the British they were usually referring to people from England. People from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland were assigned geographic quarters in the human mind, because only England and its capital city were of any importance, and therefore references to 'Brits' equalled a reference to English people. The flare-up in Northern Ireland had yet to begin in earnest, and in the 1960s the norms imposed by the State Church of England were adhered to by the hoi polloi.
To understand the real movements of Ronan O'Rahilly between the time of his arrival in 1961, and the first news items about his connection to 'Radio Caroline' in late March 1964, it is necessary to consider the chronology of events covering those years, and to do that we turn to our YesterCode for help.
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Editing in progress preparatory for a print edition.
This text remains fluid and subject to change.
Editing in progress preparatory for a print edition.
This text remains fluid and subject to change.