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 him 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 know also about 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.

Every time a tune is played on the radio it creates associations in the mind of the listener, and broadcasters who were called disc jockeys because they played discs, are now dying off with their memories. Many of them have written books about their past activities in broadcasting, and because they were on the low end of the management tree, they were not aware of the activities of the people who made their employment possible. All they had to do was speak into a microphone and play the records; commercials; station breaks and add blather about nothing much in particular.

So this presented a lot of these would-be DJ-authors with a problem. If they merely rattled on about how clever they were, the book buying audience would ignore them. But if they mixed-in with their blather a lot of "inside information", like gossip about their peers and superiors, well, then they had a chance to sell their typographical wares to the hoi polloi.

Unfortunately for them they were on the lower level of the employment tree and so they had no idea of what the people at the top were up to. They were at the top, and they were on the bottom end of the money trail.

In this way many books and articles got written about the offshore stations of the Sixties, and most of them are filled with nonsense. That which the authors did not know, they got from other books or from people who relayed second-hand tales. This is how Robert Chapman got into the picture.

So when April 1990 rolled around, and Cambridge University Press published an article comparing 'Radio London' with 'Radio Caroline', it seemed as if its author knew what he was writing about, which of course he did not. Robert Chapman threw into his article just about every line of gossip about the management of the two stations that he had heard, and naturally, most of these line items of apocryphal, inside information, were derived from made-up rubbish.

Robert Chapman was trying to get a university degree, and this subject was part of his means of achieving it with a dissertation. So he wrote an article and then he wrote a book which was published the year after the BBC-TV documentary had turned Ian Cowper Ross' novel into claimed fact. Which of course it was wasn't, but it was claimed that it was. 

But when Robert Chapman wrote this article for publication in April 1990, he did not have the mythology of Ian Cowper Ross to draw upon. So he knew nothing about the myth involving 'Jimmy Ross', and consequently he could only recite the old nonsense about 'Radio Caroline' being named after Caroline Kennedy, and tales like that. Tales such as the one about the wife of LBJ investing in 'Radio London'. It was what Robert Chapman had been told, not what he knew.

The real story about the offshore stations of the Sixties has nothing to do with broadcasting, and that is the real reason why no one has revealed that story to date. It has more in common with the mythology of 'Climate Change' than it does with kids being deprived of pop music.

After all, when 'Radio Caroline' first hit the airwaves, the Beatles were already big, and one attachment to the aristocratic in-law connections of Ian Cowper Ross was already cashing-in on their success, while it would be years before others cashed-in on Herbert W. Armstrong's themed warnings about our polluted Planet, and the Brexit crisis. Yet that was the message that kept the offshore pirate stations of the Sixties on the air.

But the DJs like Kenny Everett could only get annoyed when the voice of Art Gilmore interrupted his 'Big L' show with 'The World Tomorrow', even though that program was helping to pay his wages. Everett did not understand that program, and neither did other Djs who turned to writing their memoirs, yet that program had more in common with the offshore stations coming on the air, than the kids who wanted to hear Beatles' records on the radio!

Check out this site for more information about Ian Cowper Ross.

The reason for this Blog and its relating pages, is because the subject of 'Radio Caroline' is really the subject of two companion stories: The first one, which another Blog is following, relates to the negative unmasking of the bogus storyline which we are calling: 'Caroline: the girl who never was'. This is where we strip naked the bogus story about 'Jimmy Ross' and how he is supposed to have financed 'Radio Caroline'.

The second storyline answers this question: "Well, if that is not the story, just what is the real story?"

Of course the answer also demands its own title, and right now we are working with: 'Caroline: strip tease in the North Sea'. It is all about the twin topics of oil and natural gas versus ideological banter hiding behind the words 'Climate Change'. It is also an explanation about how the logistical legal problems created by 'Radio Caroline', led to the necessity for new legislation after old problems had been buried at sea by a hoax.

Everything that has appeared since 1990 in print, and over the airwaves claiming to tell readers, listeners and viewers about the "real story" or the "true story" of 'Radio Caroline', is a part of that hoax. You will find the answers to the first part on this companion site and the second part of the story will continue to appear on this Blog - prior to its publication in book format, following publication of the first book.

Ian Cowper Ross wrote a novel that was published in 1990. It was about a person named Paul Shaw whose mother called her husband, and Paul's father, Jim. A stranger to Jim Shaw arrived and called him Jimmy.

The following year BBC-TV broadcast a documentary with Ian Cowper Ross. Here are excerpts from that program in which he linked his novel to real events, but he did not say that he is Paul Shaw or that his father is Jim or Jimmy Shaw. A succession of book writers have done that, only they have turned Jimmy Shaw into Jimmy Ross and attributed the actions of Paul Shaw and his father to Ian Cowper Ross and his father.

Take note of what Ian Cowper Ross said on   BBC-TV in 1991. He mentions "Daddy", but that is all. Then he attaches "Daddy" to Jocelyn Stevens - not to John Sheffield at Norcros. We have found court room evidence of a teenage Ian Cowper Ross crashing a Jensen car, but that is all. The Jensen historians appear to have never heard of Charles Edward Ross from New Zealand.

We have uncovered the identity of Ian's grandfather on his father's side, and we have a dossier on his father's first marriage; birth of Ian's step brother; divorce from Ian's step mother; his marriage to Ian's mother; a possible DWI charge involving his father and his death in 1986. But what we have also discovered is that he was a civil servant who seems to have led a rather strange life in obscurity. That is not where the story of 'Radio Caroline' begins - that story is a hoax that covers up the real story that has far greater implications for the average person alive today.

That story attaches to Ian's aristocratic in-laws, and to the novel that he wrote back in 1990 ...

Because our research is still ongoing, we are not at this time announcing a publication date in book format for this work, and because our attention has shifted from the narrow focus that it once had, the broadcasting aspects of our studies are now a part of a much bigger picture. However, this story, when released in book form, will render a vast library of material that is currently in circulation about British broadcasting and its interaction with American interests, as obsolete, or misleading. In the meantime, we suggest that you follow the progress of our research in the daily blogs and web page information that we are currently updating. There is no charge attached at this time to these Online publications.

We are currently building a chronological profile of the entire family centered around the person of Ian Cowper Ross. Today we were able to retrieve the marriage records of his father and mother which we are currently adding to the previously obtained information about his step-brother and his mother and her relationship to Charles Edward Ross.

Due to our lack of progress in 2015, we halted our attempts to decipher the 1990 book 'Rocking the Boat'. We knew that this was a semi-autobiographical work which had been written in the manner of a Roman à clef novel in which real people or events appear with invented names and locations. But what we could not find was the 'key' to unlocking its real life details which had been overlaid with a façade of fiction.

There were many unanswered questions which had been raised about the original purpose and financing of 'Radio Caroline' in 1964, and while details about other stations had been made available, even though some of those details were themselves incomplete, they were discoverable. Not so with the story of 'Radio Caroline'.

So in order to cover-up this missing piece of information, an elaborate tale was invented that swirled around a fictitious biography of a young Irishman named Ronan O'Rahilly. To spread that fiction afar, the persons of Christopher Moore and Ian Cowper Ross were employed by the string-pullers behind the scenes of their puppet's mouth.

The focus point of this mythology was a meeting in the Kenya coffee bar on King's Road in Chelsea. That led to a car drive to Hindhead in Surrey to see the father of Ian Cowper Ross - at least, that is what the revised version of this story claimed.

Initially, the characters named in the book were a different trio, and it was that fictitious trio who first went to the Kenya coffee shop, and then to Hindhead to see a man named "Jim Shaw". That is the foundation of the mythology spread by Keith Skues; Ray Clark and Paul Rusling. All three of them have bought hook, line and sinker, the mythological trio invented by Ian Cowper Ross, and all three: Skues; Clark and Rusling have attempted to then turn the real person of Charles Edward Ross, into the fictitious character of "Jimmy Ross".

It should be noted here that the person of "Jimmy Ross" does not appear as a character by that name in the book written by Ian Cowper Ross!

So we have a novel and a "second edition" of that novel, not written by Ian Cowper Ross, but by Keith Skues, Ray Clark and Paul Rusling! By revealing their deception we have incurred the wrath of their devoted followers who do not like the true story being uncovered. It is not an easy task because so much time has elapsed and the "Jimmy" myth is now so well implanted.

In 2015 we abandoned our attempt to unravel this mess when we encountered another deception in a book called 'Radio Man'. That book took us on another journey of several years where we attempted to find the true story. We succeeded, but then it left those facts or pieces of the 'Caroline' jigsaw puzzle hanging in abeyance while we tried to reconcile them with the true story about "Jimmy Ross", as Skues and Rusling began to call him in their works of deception.

Recently we undertook another go at finding the keys to unlocking the novel by Ian Cowper Ross, and this time we found them in the real life documented fragments of contemporary accounts about the lives of his parents; step-mother; grandparents and aristocratic in-laws. But we are by no means ready to assemble and publish our discoveries, because there a few more major pieces to locate, although this time we know precisely what it is that we are looking for!

The scope of this Blog is enormous, and therefore we find it necessary to direct your attention to other blogs with a more focused approach. This reference concerns everything to do with the start of Radio Caroline in 1964, as it relates to Ian Cowper Ross, and the claims made about his relationship to its source of financing. Click this banner for more information:

When we began to expose the virgin birth of Caroline, the true believers who never question anything, all reacted in horror. It was as if we have started off a new Scopes' 'Monkey Trial'.

For those who know nothing about that event which disputed words in the 'Holy Bible', here is a quick overview:

So we wondered, just have far back in time do you have to go to find the truth about the birth of Radio Caroline?

We flipped open our copy of Keith Skues weighty work claiming copyrights in 1968, 1994 and 2009, so you would think that by 2009 Keith had got his facts straight, wouldn't you? You would be wrong!

There are his 'magic words' on page 11 of 'Pop Went the Pirates II':

"..... the conscientious Ronan O'Rahilly was making progress fast. He had already found seven millionaire backers including ..... Mr Jimmy Ross."

So Paul Rusling was in solid head-in-the-sand company when he made the same claim in his 2019 'bible'.

How about that massive 1996 doorstopper by Mike Leonard called 'From International Waters'? On page 61, Mike says that Allan Crawford met Ronan O'Rahilly as early as 1962, which contradicts both Allan Crawford and Ian Cowper Ross who said that it was around March 1963, and the connection was made via "mutual acquaintances living in the then ultra-fashionable King's Road area of Chelsea." Now we are back to King's Road, again. Mike also invents a bogus history of Planet Productions Limited and claims that it was a 'holding company' used by Ronan O'Rahilly to raise money from the father of Ian Ross who Mike turns into ".... a venture capital broker in the City of London." But in a quick thumb-through we could not find any mention of Jimmy!

In 1992, academic Robert Chapman wrote on page 62 of his book 'Selling the Sixties': "Radio Caroline's original board of directors included C.E. Ross, owner of the Ross group of companies ...." Well, at least he didn't turn C.E. Ross into 'Jimmy Ross', even though he did invent a business identity for C.E. who he described as the father of Ian Ross. Later in the book he refers to C.E. again and makes it look as though he and John Sheffield of Norcros more-or-less own the controlling shares in Radio Caroline.

These fantasy stories, one built upon another are now so firmly ingrained that they are akin to religious dogma, and to attack these myths is like starting a new "Monkey Trial" with true believers who go ape wild. To then strip Ronan O'Rahilly of his Teflon coat and reveal him as a total fraud and liar, well, that is akin to attacking the person of Jesus Christ. After all, Hans Knot wrote that the Holy Bible was on the same level of necessary reading as Paul Rusling's 'bible'!

The anoraks and scammers have a lot to say until they are called to account, and then silence descends in response to our challenge.