A Tale of Two Jimmys ....

We have already introduced you to James Deterding who was always called 'Jimmy' by his friends. We explained that he is the grandson of Sir Henri Deterding, founder of the Royal Dutch Shell group of companies, and that his grandfather was given a Nazi State funeral for his contribution to the Nazi Party under the leadership of Führer Adolf Hitler.

We will return to the story of Jimmy Deterding in future editions of this Blog. But now we want to tell you all about a man never called Jimmy, although the writers of fake stories about the creation of 'Radio Caroline' want you to believe that he was. They want you to believe this lie because it supports their bigger lie that this non-Jimmy was the man who made the birth of 'Radio Caroline' possible, even if he wasn't. We will prove that he wasn't called Jimmy, and that he was not the man who got the financing for 'Radio Caroline'.

Misdirection began early on in the mythological telling of a tale about 'Radio Caroline'.

It began shortly after 'Radio Caroline' came on the air in 1964 when it was suggested that it owed its financial birth to a man with the initials "C. E.".

The surname of that man is Ross.

It was then suggested that Mr. C. E. Ross had an association with the father-in-law of Jocelyn Stevens, and the name of that man is John Sheffield. We will tell you more about both Jocelyn Stevens and John Sheffield tomorrow.

However, before you get lost in this untangling of a deliberately tangled tale, we will remind you that the main character is a Mr. C. E. Ross. His initials represent the names Charles Edward. So we are talking about a Charles Edward Ross. Friends may have called him Charlie, or even Eddie. They would not have called him 'Jimmy' which is a nickname for someone named James, as in James Deterding.

​We mention all of this because Paul Alexander Rusling and a host of other vanity publishers, have all repeated the nonsense lie that Charles Edward Ross did not object to being called 'Jimmy' by a young Irishman who was less than half of the age of Mr. Ross, and who Mr. Ross had met for the very first time. This is one of the initial points of unbelievability in the mythology surrounding the creation of 'Radio Caroline'. We call them lies and their most recent promotion as lies has been at the hand of Paul Alexander Rusling.

In 1964, Charles Edward Ross lived in a leased house at Hindhead, which is a village centered ten and a half miles southwest of Guildford, and that is the county town of Surrey on its border with the county of Hampshire. The Surrey town of Haslemere is located two miles southeast of the village of Hindhead.

The house that Charles Edward Ross lived in was located on what had recently been a farm in Hindhead. The farm was auctioned off in the Nineteen Fifties and was situated in Reynards Wood, which is located off a small hill to the western side of a bend in Woolmer Road. Letters addressed to residents in the vicinity of Reynards Wood used Haslemere as their postal address.

The farm that was auctioned off by its owner, and the house that Charles Edward Ross lived in, had been built on part of that former agricultural property. The house was arrived at by a small private road blocked by a gated entrance which gained the name of 'Reynardswood'.

Charles Edward was married to Phyllis, a lady who came from Haslemere. Charles had been born in New Zealand, and his entrepreneurial parents owned a business. Charles and Phyllis had two sons; their youngest was named Ian Cowper Ross, with a middle name inserted to preserve connections with family roots in New Zealand.

Before relocation to Hindhead, Ian was born in London. He had been sent to the same public school at Repton previously attended by his older brother, although Ian, by his own admission, was not a successful pupil.

At age 18, on November 3, 1961, Ian found himself in Derby County Magistrates Court where he was pronounced "guilty of driving in a manner dangerous to the public". Ian had  caused an accident to occur at Willington, Derbyshire. He was fined £50 and disqualified from driving for a year.

In court, Ian faced the judge on crutches, which he explained was "the result of a broken leg he received in the accident". He also gained the nickname of 'Flipper' from his mangled foot that was barely saved from amputation. Many years later in California, in a partnership business, the name 'Flipper' was emblazoned in light above a roller disco, implying that Ian had come to both accept and even promote his nickname. 

Back in 1961, in court, Ian told the judge that he had been "to visit his old school at Repton" when the Jensen car he was driving, crashed head-on into a bus. It might be deemed needless to say, but Ian was driving on the wrong side of the road when he caused £4000 damage to the Jensen sports car which hit the bus. This was not his first road accident. He also managed to wreck a classic motorbike during another road excursion. Eighteen years old and for all intents and purposes unemployed, Ian got hold of the Jensen car from his father who was a director of a Birmingham-based factory that made Jensen cars, and for whom Charles Edward Ross acted as a salesman.

Ian, as the second son of Charles and Phyllis was not exactly an asset to his father or mother, other than being a fact of life as their biological offspring. But Ian grew up, he began to believe that he had some sort of entitlement to a life of riches that did not involve achievement via work. Over time Ian evolved a plan to marry into both the British Establishment, and into wealth, while having fun and frivolity at the expense of other people.

Ian's 'ticket' to the 'good life', was to be a young model who added sex and glamor to Ian's daydream, but which he planned to turn into a reality. This is where the germ of an idea that matured into a psuedo roman-a-clef story about the fake origins of 'Radio Caroline' sprang from.

We will tell you more tomorrow.