Why isn't Ray Clark admitting he was fooled?

Back in 1994, Keith Skues cobbled together a load of previously published material to which he added his nonsense about Ronan O'Rahilly: He called it 'Pop Went the Pirates', and it went into a second edition in 2009 and on his page 11, he wrote:

"Ronan O'Rahilly .... had already found seven millionaire backers including Jocelyn Stevens .... Mr John Sheffield .... and Mr Jimmy Ross."

He offered no proof, and the reason he could not do so is because Keith Skues was making stuff up, or borrowing rubbish from other sources: "Mr Jimmy Smith" did not exist! He got that silly story from Ian Cowper Ross who originally wrote a roman-a-clef work in 1990 about a man named "Jimmy Shaw".

Then in 1991, on BBC-TV, Ian Cowper Ross began to tout the idea that "Jimmy Shaw" was really his father Charles Edward Ross, and he became "Jimmy" when Ronan O'Rahilly began to call him by that name. That was on a supposed first meeting in which O'Rahilly hit up Ross for money!

Good start by addressing someone more senior than you, who you have never met before, but who you want money from, by calling that person by the wrong name!

 So where did that apocryphal tale come from?

The answer is that it came from Ian Cowper Ross' 1990 novel.

That book refers to a "Jim" and a "Jimmy" and to a man with the surname of "Shaw", but not "Jimmy Shaw". In 1991, its author who is Ian Cowper Ross, began to turn his novel into a kind of roman-a-clef biographical account of his father, Charles Edward Ross. That is when the insolent behavior of O'Rahilly is supposed to have taken place, but that incident never happened in real life.

Almost as soon that "Jimmy Shaw" was turned into "Jimmy Ross", Keith Skues came along and endorsed it as fact! He claimed on page 11, that:

"O'Rahilly formed a company which was registered in Ireland and known as Planet Productions, but he had an office at 52 Fetter Lane, London EC4. He made himself a director - the company was worth £350,000. Radio Caroline was owned by Alrana and registered in Liechtenstein."

The problem for Skues is that it reveals his own lack of credibility. Not only did "Jimmy Ross" not exist, but neither did the office at 52 Fetter Lane! Neither does the company that he refers to fit into his timeline. That is because Planet Productions Ltd was not registered until February 25, 1964, and that was long after the mv Fredericia had been purchased and taken to Rotterdam by Wijsmuller.

Another problem for Skues is that the first 'Radio Caroline' programs were recorded on tape at 47 Dean Street, which was the home of Project Atlanta Limited. That company had been registered in August 1963, which was long before Keith Skues got involved with 'Radio Caroline'.

Keith Skues has a lot to say for a man who just makes stuff up!

However, Skues had help from Ray Clark who has also published two editions of his own book about 'Radio Caroline'.

The first edition of Clark's book was published in 2014, and he relied heavily on an interview with Ian Cowper Ross for his source material. On his own page 37, Ray Clark added these words:

"Ian Ross had a very wealthy father, a financier in the City, who owned the Jensen car company and had interests in numerous other businesses, including a London bank and the Buxted chicken brand."

Ray Clark offered no proof for this statement, but in 2019, just before Paul Rusling released his equally silly 'bible', Ray Clark published his second edition which now had an Index listing on his page 351 for "Ross, Charles (Jimmy)" with four referenced pages of nonsense.

Working backwards from his page 144, Clark claimed to be quoting "Barry Ainley, Planet Productions, general manager" in material he claimed to have obtained from Offshore Echoes magazine, but with no date or page number. This quotation begins: "Jimmy Ross said, 'would I go and run Radio Caroline?"

Since "Jimmy Ross" did not and does not exist, it is highly unlikely that Barry Ainley who did exist, would have made such a remark - unless he was working with Ian Cowper Ross who began this silly tale about the non-existent "Jimmy Ross". If anything, Charles Edward Ross would have been called "Charlie" by his friends and colleagues.

The name "Jimmy" had been invented by Ian Cowper Ross - as the name for his fictitious character called "Jimmy Shaw"!

Next in the Ray Clark Index is an unnumbered picture page 124, on which is a bogus telegram with a caption that reads: ".... from a jubilant Ronan to Caroline financier 'Jimmy' Charles Ross". That bit of fabricated nonsense goes back to the imagination of Ian Cowper Ross! Funnily enough, the actual wording on the made-up telegram shows that it is addressed to "Mr Ross"! Nowhere does it say "Jimmy" or even Charles Edward.

It is in fact a fake document that was either handed to Ray Clark by Ian Cowper Ross, or Ray Clark made up this fake document himself. It could just as easily be read from Ronan to Ian, which is far more plausible because the fake 'telegram' says: "Congratulations. Without you it would never have happened. Love Ronan."

What is the "it" factor? Deception and lies, obviously. That is what the hard evidence reveals!
Now we go back from the Index to Ray Clark's pages 45 and 46, to read these jewels of make believe revisionism:

"Ian Ross had a very wealthy father, New Zealand-born Charles Ross, a financier in the City, who had interests in numerous businesses; including a London bank, the Jensen car company and the Buxted chicken brand, although he had no connection with the Ross fisheries company ...."

Just cast your attention back to page 37 in the first edition of Ray Clark's book published in 2014, in which he wrote:

"Ian Ross had a very wealthy father, a financier in the City, who owned  the Jensen car company and had interests in numerous other businesses, including a London bank and the Buxted chicken brand."

In that first 2014 edition "Jimmy Ross" who did not exist, "owned the Jensen car company," but now in 2019, his attachment to Jensen had been demoted to an "interest". Jensen which had its factory and headquarters in Birmingham, sold out to Norcros in 1959 which then dumped it in 1966 after failing to rescue this unprofitable venture. A lot has been written about Jensen and its managers and owners, and Charles Edward Ross is not among any of the names listed!

What is this "bank"?

Clark does not tell us, neither does he explain his references to the "Buxted chicken brand", which is clearly a brand that Ray Clark knows nothing about! That is why others began adding references to Ross Frozen Foods; MacFisheries and even CarPhone Warehouse and even turning Charles Ross into Carl Ross! The stories get sillier by the second.

Back on page 46, Clark let Ian Cowper run wild with his story in which his fiction of 1990 was becoming evermore 'fact' in the year 2019, which was just before Rusling added to the confusion by publishing his print-on-demand 'bible'. On that same page 46 of Clark's book, Ian Cowper Ross identified his father as a "stockbroker":

"Dad was involved with a little bank called Close Brothers that was his base, I think they came in. If he recommended something, people bought it, he had a reputation, they thought it was a flutter. Anyway they put the money in that night."

So the bank referred to later by Clark is identified earlier by Ian Cowper Ross as "a little bank called Close Brothers". That's more of the same kind of name-dropping used concerning Jensen and Buxted. Clark didn't check this information out because he guessed that no one else would either. He guessed wrong!

But who were "they", those people who bought in for "a flutter"?

".... (he) rang his mates Jocelyn Stevens, John Sheffield, and these stockbroker guy who were in his kind of gang."

That is what Ray Clark wrote in the second edition of his book.

According to Ian Cowper Ross this "gang" must have had money to burn and common sense in short supply because they turned over to Ronan O'Rahilly a suitcase full of cash the very next day. Clark's recital gets worse the more he cites Ian Cowper Ross, because young Ronan O'Rahilly supposedly then sent his mate Christopher Moore, who Ian describes as a "gigalo" who gained his experiences on board cruise ships, to go off and buy the mv Fredericia - with cash.

Ian Cowper Ross has wound-up the entire anorak community with his growing tales of nonsense, which means that the real story has never been told.

Or has it?

We discovered that back in 1964, serious British journals such as the 'Economist' and 'New Statemen' were getting very close to the real story. That was bad for the people pulling the political strings behind the commercial radio lobby, and they needed to create a diversion. So they prodded Jocelyn Stevens to speak up, but that was still too close for comfort. So Jocelyn turned the blarney factor over to Ronan O'Rahilly, who in turn was fed material over the years by Ian Cowper Ross.

So what is the "real story" about 'Radio Caroline', if it not the one published by Ray Clark?

That is what we are unravelling by retracing the life story of Charles Edward Ross.

So far we have traced his background to grandparents New Zealand, and then, thanks to documents such as the British Electoral Rolls, we tracked his emigration to England.

We know where he was from the 1930s through to the early 1960s. We know about his first marriage and his son by that first marriage. He is Ian's stepbrother. We also know about his father's divorce and his second marriage, and we know all of this from public records.

We know a lot about Ian's stepbrother who was both a failing promoter of musicals and the operator of a car wash and restaurant. We know about his stepbrother's business partner, and even the death of Ian's stepbrother, and where he is buried.

We know all about Ian's twin-set of aristocratic in-laws and their ties to both the British Crown, and to a scam involving the Beatles that may have led to murder!

We also know what Ian did during the rest of the Sixties after the Marine Offences Act, and his long-running ties to a man who went to work at the original 'Caroline House', before it moved to 6 Chestefield Gardens. We know who owned that property, and how 'Radio Caroline' came to be based there.

We now know all of that and a whole lot more about Ian Cowper Ross, which, if you knew what we now know, would make any offshore radio enthusiast demand an immediate refund from all of the people who have swindled them with their fake stories about 'Radio Caroline'. The scammers want money and they don't care what they have to do to get it.

Now you know why a bunch of vanity-seeking publishers and broadcasters do not like this project at all!

Too bad for them. This project will continue until it emerges in book form, but we won't be hurried and we won't be intimidated.