Until the year 1990, there were comparatively few books dealing with the origins of Radio Caroline in 1964, and most of those were of an amateur nature focusing upon Tony Benn as some sort of political spoil-sport. Prime Minister Harold Wilson hid behind Benn while Benn took the brunt of abuse and ridicule.

At one point in the proceedings, Benn even remarked that Wilson was listening to one of the offshore stations, and Benn confirmed that the sound of offshore radio was to be heard in his own home. Politicians in all of the main parties, some more than others, kept raising the issue about passing a law to "suppress" these stations, but Tony Benn refused to attach his name to any Parliamentary Bill with that word in its title.

Just before the 1967 Marine Offences Act was presented to Parliament in its final form, Benn was promoted to a higher job that embraced his previous authority, but which gave him a wider responsibility than his job as Postmaster General. By the time all the shouting was over and the Bill had become the Law, the nation did not engage in civil war, and neither did the Labour Party immediately lose office. That change came about due to the financial mismanagement of the British economy and a disaster in the making that involved international loans resulting in a revolt over unemployment by British trade unions.

Because Tony Benn was a maverick within his own political party, and because Tony Benn had surrendered a title which had previously placed him briefly in the House of Lords, and because he had married an American wife with the eponymous first name of Caroline, he was a fringe player, but a man who was constantly interested in his own continuing education about the past. However, he was not a total team player when it came to going along with party politics or even national identity as created by the British Establishment.

So Tony Benn took a lot of abuse from everyone, and now, in the light of new information it does indeed seem that Tony Benn could have adopted these lyrics for his own anthem:

Some years ago on BBC Radio Kent, ex-offshore Radio London dj Dave Cash asked Tony Benn a question about our work, and Tony Benn was quite open and honest in his response ....

You can read the article (with misquoted reference by Dave Cash), at this location. (Click)

This article was written around the time that Nicholas Stanley's book 'Radio Man' first came to our attention, and then we began a joint investigation with Chris Edwards of OEM in order to uncover the story behind the mysterious paragraph on its page 276. This is the reference that attributed the beginnings of Radio Caroline to Charles Orr Stanley and his son John who both managed the Pye Group of companies.

Chris Edwards was not the first person to request that his name be removed from our list of contributors due to the highly controversial area into which we began to delve. However, after agreeing to abide by his request, Chris then began making comments on other forums that implied that what we are engaging in is something that he disapproves of. It is true that this investigation is rapidly pulling the rug from underneath the anorak belief system, and unless this contradiction is addressed in OEM, it is likely that upon our own publication in book format of this information, a question of credibility will soon confront Offshore Echos Magazine.

However, what is now becoming very obvious is that Tony Benn has been libeled and slandered and that Ronan O'Rahilly has been exalted to a level of admiration that he does not deserve. What allowed the libel and slander to take place was the hidden story of Radio Caroline, which to this day has never been told, except by us!

We will be explaining more about the real problem facing Tony Benn and the real reason for the passage into law of the Marine Broadcasting Act of 1967, and its updated by incorporation version into the 1990 Broadcasting Act, within this continuing series of Blog posts.

Anoraks are among the most stupid people walking this Planet.

We mean, that group who hide behind fictitious identities and parrot what they were told to parrot by a generation of radio broadcasting anoraks before them. Their great evil seems to be Tony Benn - who they appear to believe was the equivalent of the entity described in a Christian Bible as 'Satan'. Maybe for some anoraks that also includes Prime Minister Harold Wilson and their "abomination of desolation" was that law known as the 1967 Marine Offences Act. For the anoraks that law seems to be the beginning of the worst evil to ever strike the United Kingdom.

But why Tony Benn?

Because Tony Benn said that the offshore stations of the Sixties were 'pirates' and no nation could allow such disregard for its laws. But what laws were being challenged, and why was Tony Benn so adamant that the offshore stations of the 'SIxties had to be shut down? Tony Benn said that the lack of law enforcement  was causing laws to be ignored with impunity.

Again, what laws were being ignored before the enactment of the 1967 Marine Offences Act?

Therein is the foundational root disease suffered by these radio anoraks: they don't know, they don't care and instead, the flap their gums and now tweeting fingers in the name of 'free radio'. But what freedoms are being discussed, and what freedoms do the anoraks believe that Tony Benn was denying to ordinary people?

Was it freedom of political speech? Hardly a cause reflected by the broadcasts of the offshore stations. In fact, in the beginning they were on official record as having told the Liberal Party to take a hike. There would be no political advertising on the original Radio Caroline.

Was it freedom of religion? Well the offshore stations sold time to religious broadcasters, but not one of the major programs carried the accent of someone from England, Scotland, Wales or Ireland - north or south. Not one of them was an advocate speaking on behalf of the Vatican (Roman Catholicism), nor a Buddhist, nor a Muslim promoting any version of Islam. No, for the most part they were American voices and with the exception of the Lutherans, they were American fringe groups outside the structure of mainstream American religion. Some, like Billy Graham  spoke from a Baptist viewpoint, but Billy Graham was the darling of Queen Elizabeth II and he could be heard (and seen) on transmissions by the British Broadcasting Corporation. He could be seen and heard everywhere.

Was it recorded music? Even the often told lie about the shunning of Georgie Fame falls flat when his LP that was released by EMI before the first peep from Radio Caroline is considered. How about Joe Meek and his minor label? He was able to buy time on Radio Luxembourg, years before Radio Caroline first came on the air.

So what this clamour for 'free radio' all about? It had a run of several years in several versions to prove its point, but it failed. When the crunch came the British people asked for the Party of Tony Benn to legislate the laws of the United Kingdom. They won by a slim majority, so there was another election and they won that election as well by a nice majority. Then came the Marine Offences Act and Tony Benn was given even more power and authority to enforce that legislation.

After 1967 the days of the legitimate offshore radio campaign were over, and a bunch of thieves and crooks moved in. In the Eighties when Americans on Madison Avenue were conned (once again) into believing a ridiculous message about 'Pan-European Advertising', the UK government of that day also took action. Now it was law enforcement reflected in the legislative action of both the Conservative and Labour Parties.

So again we ask, why the libel and slander of Tony Benn - especially when it came to 'that' general audience motion picture?

We don't know the answer, except that those who libeled and slandered Tony Benn could "get away with it", because he was a political figure.

We confess to having held similar views, until we started to dig deep into British history. But what we learned does not support the Anorak libel and slander, it goes to something much more basic and the Anoraks don't want to know.

So we continue to research this subject from an academic and forensic standpoint, only to find ourselves at 'war' with the loony Anoraks. They just don't want to know but they can't explain why they don't want to know.

Do you know?

If its because we make it plain that Ronan O'Rahilly and his ilk were people who used and abused the dumb Anoraks for personal and financial gain, their reaction merely reflects how much of a degenerate mind-set these Anorak cultists have become.

Or is it because even their most "sacred cow" is exposed as merely an invented myth, namely that the act of broadcasting from a marine base is something which is almost 'holy' to "their cause" that the BBC could never understand. Except for the fact that back in 1927 the BBC was the first entity to transmit original studio broadcasts to the entire United Kingdom from a vessel.

​Isn't it funny that the Anoraks 'overlooked' that fact, and they have focused instead upon a publicity stunt that took place later, and it didn't broadcast anything. It merely blasted music over loudspeakers to the shore. Even John Reith noted the aversion by the press in telling the truth about this original BBC claim to fame.

It was the press, not the record industry that had most to fear from the beginnings of BBC broadcasting in the United Kingdom. Anoraks have the wrong target because they lack a true foundation in the history of broadcasting, and because they are ignorant, they self-publish idiotic books that glorify events that never happened, and a steady stream of fraudsters who never achieved anything.

So we ask you: why the libel and slander of Tony Benn?

This is a reproduction of the information required on a section of the official paperwork for Planet Productions Limited, that was submitted in 1965 by Barry Ainley to the Irish government in Dublin. 

​So where does it say "Place Bros", and where is the connection to John Sheffield?

It doesn't say "Place Bros" and neither does it mention Close Bros who had connections to the dry-cleaning business that Ian Cowper Ross' father worked for. His name was not "Jimmy Shaw" or "Jimmy Ross", because neither person existed.

Did "Place Bros" exist? Even if it did, that is not what Barry Ainley submitted on this company document. 

We will!

We are referring to the nonsense that OEM is continuing to remain uncorrected when its editors know about the Caroline fraud.

We know because Chris Edwards was our great co-partner in uncovering the rubbish spun by Ronan O'Rahilly by investigating the origins of the claims made by Nicholas Stanley in his book called 'Radio Man'. Just look what both Jocelyn Stevens AND Barry Ainley were doing in 1965. There was NO NEED for a "Jimmy Ross" .....

See our companion Blog for today and then look at this graphic:

Oh yes we did! We under-reported the true age of Paul Alexander Rusling a few posts back on our companion Blog. The man that "Sir Hans Knot" equates with "God" as the author of the alternative 'Bible' which he says you should read every day, was eleven years of age, mark that down: 11 years of age in 1964. We admit the error of our ways in making this textual mistake. Now if only the anoraks would admit theirs which are a 'little' more significant.

Lots of redactions, and not a lot of truth telling by the folks responsible for reporting the chronology of events. But yesterday there were dark hints that something awful might occur in 2022, just like they might have happened just prior to the creation of Radio Caroline in 1963. For details please visit our companion Blog using the link above.

The chronology of 1963 news covers more than the beginnings of Radio Caroline, because it also covers a strange sequence of events involving President John F. Kennedy and his arrival in West Germany; West Berlin; the Republic of Ireland; at the home of Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in England, and finally in Italy, before he returned to the USA - just months before he was murdered in broad daylight during the middle of the day and surrounded by onlookers. Ronan O'Rahilly was not in Europe. He was in Houston and then Galveston, Texas, and yet, his 'hero' was supposedly the man he never met, but could have met - in Ireland! See our companion Blog for more. (Use the link above.)

In June 1963, President John F. Kennedy was paying an "informal" visit to the home of British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan.

Ronan O'Rahilly was in Houston, Texas.

On November 22, 1963, a most absurd murder took place in broad daylight watched by crowds of people in person, and probably by millions of people on television. President John F. Kennedy was dead.

A few weeks later at the end of December 1963, one ship left Galveston, Texas in a hurry, and a few hours later another ship left Copenhagen, Denmark. Both ships were to become broadcasting vessels using the call sign of 'Radio Caroline' and anchor just outside British territorial waters.

What did Kennedy and Macmillan discuss in secret, and why was Kennedy murdered in front of an audience of millions?

What was the hurry?

Ray Orchard used to pose that question at the start of the Capitol Show on Radio Luxembourg, and it was a good question followed by a good answer. In popular British parlance, the answer really did describe "what was on the tin", or in this instance, what was on the title of that time slot.

Unfortunately there is a body of printed and recorded work in circulation that consists of answers to questions where the person providing the answer has no direct knowledge of the real answer, so they invent one. A word often used to describe this practice is gossip - which is the palming off to another person, information that has been gleaned from someone else, but whose authenticity regarding the original source is unknown to the person doing the gossiping. In other words, that person has no direct or first-hand knowledge to impart as an answer to the question being asked.

Such is the case of "Jimmy Ross".

Without the story of "Jimmy Ross" there is no story about the origins of Radio Caroline in 1964. Think about it. Think about all of those books and magazine and newspaper articles and all of those radio and television documentaries. How did their authors get away with it?

If "Jimmy Ross" is but the expanded fiction about a man named "Jimmy" whose fictitious surname was "Shaw", then how on earth did "Jimmy Ross" become a fixture in the minds of the average anorak?

"Jimmy" is the name of a person invented as the name for a fictitious father to a character named "Paul Shaw" in a novel by Ian Cowper Ross.

Ian Cowper Ross never claimed that his character was named "Jimmy Shaw". What Ian Cowper Ross did claim in his novel, is that someone (another fictitious character), called "Paul Shaw's father" by the name of "Jimmy", even though the fictitious "Paul Shaw" never claimed that the fictitious father of this make believe person was named "Jimmy". In fact, the inference in the novel is that the fictitious father of the fictitious "Paul Shaw" was not named "Jimmy", and therefore he was not "Jimmy Shaw". The fictitious "Paul Shaw" only called his fictitious father "Daddy".

Now it is true that the surname of "Ross" did crop up in news accounts before Ian Cowper Ross wrote his book, and that by 1967 the actual name of Ian Cowper Ross' father was occasionally referred to as "C.E. Ross", but that is as far as that reporting goes.

No one ever said what this "C.E. Ross" did for a living, that emerged in vague terms later on when others decided to add job descriptions to this man.

The question then is this: Did Ian Cowper Ross' father have any connection to Radio Caroline, and where is the proof of that claim? It cannot be found. What can be found is the family tree of the real Charles Edward Ross that stretches back to New Zealand, and the several addresses that Charles Edward Ross resided at, and the two marriages of Charles Edward Ross; the step-brother of Ian Cowper Ross by the first marriage of Charles Edward Ross, and the growing franchise business in dry-cleaning that began in Scotland that employed Charles Edward Ross, and the merchant bank called Close Brothers that helped to sell shares in that dry-cleaning franchise.

Connections are also drawn from the same novel to two other fictitious characters who are then morphed into real people without any foundational fact.

We have been going over back issues of Offshore Echos Magazine to see what it has to say about this phantom story. The answer is not much, and what it does say is second-hand gossip.

Now if there never was a "Jimmy Ross", then how did the partially well-documented story of 'Radio Atlanta' come to morph into a story about Radio Caroline?

The silence is deafening and the library shelves are empty and gathering dust for want of a published and documented answer.

Radio Caroline "just happened", and then a ramshackle series of events occurred until a new law forbade marine broadcasting without a license, and a tug company towed away the two boats that were the known homes of Radio Caroline North and Radio Caroline South, and briefly as Radio Caroline International.

I guess according to this standard of Q and A, Ray Orchard should have replied to his own question "Well, what do you know?"

​"I dunno"!

If education is defined as expanding a memory base without critical thinking, or the inability to assess the information going into that memory base for later recall, perhaps we have defined the age in which we now live as it applies to that brand of radio enthusiasts called 'anoraks'.

We are drowning in information and our minds are gulping it all down into our brains. But very few people seem to be developing the mechanism or critical analysis that is able to sift through all that data, and then assess its relative value. It is similar to a computer storing data but without the software to analyze its value in a some form of comprehendible presentation.

Welcome to the world of the anorak, which is but a part of the lunatic fringe who might best be described by this text which is paraphrased below regarding the following quotation:

​.... The section, "You Can't Win an Argument," in Dale Carnegie's popular book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, [the section containing the quoted phrase above] is separated from the main text, indicating that it was meant as a quotation and not an original saying, but he gives no indication of where the original saying comes from.

The origin of this old adage appears to go back a long time. So long, in fact, that no one is really sure where it originally came from. It also appears in many different forms in many different places.

Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797), the famous British writer and feminist (and mother to the author of Frankenstein), included the quotation "Convince a man against his will, He's of the same opinion still." in the notes to Chapter 5 of her 1792 treatise, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman. This adage is placed in quotes, denoting that it wasn't original text, but without reference to the source.

So either she didn't know the origin of this saying or she assumed that it was so popularly known that citing the source was unnecessary. She might, however, have misquoted two lines from Samuel Butler's (1612-1680) ginormous 17th-century poem Hudibras. Part III, Canto iii, lines 547-550 read thus:

​Butler might have penned an original thought here, or he might have been borrowing what was already an old saying even in his time. We'll probably never know.

What we do know for a certainty is that the brand of lunacy that is often described by the word 'anorak' when applied to supporters of the cult of believers who engage in endless hours of nonsensical debate about the origins of Radio Caroline in 1964, have adopted a patron named Ronan O'Rahilly and a scribe named Ian Cowper Ross as their means of interpreting information about a yesterday that never was.

In other words, no matter what is revealed, the yesterday that never was is firmly fixed in their minds as a yesterday that did take place, even though the weight of evidence proves beyond any reasonable doubt that it did not.

Consequently we are now slamming the door shut upon these lunatics and moving on as if they never existed. We will however, continue to re-examine the illogical and unfounded data upon which they have established their cult. But we will no longer enter into further correspondence with them, if their intention is to defend and debate an idea that is without foundation in fact.