People

How did you get involved in Radio Caroline?

I was presenting a pop television show called Discs-a-Gogo and part of my job was to help select artists for the show. I wanted to meet a guy called Tony Blackburn who had a record out, it wasn't a great record but I'd read about his exploits on pirate radio Caroline and wanted to know more. At the time we couldn't hear the pirates in Bristol. When the TV show ended, I approached Tony’s contact who gave me the job. I think he was pleased to nab a DJ from TV because most DJ careers went the other way.

Can you recall your initial thoughts about the project?

I was sent to Radio Caroline South where I worked with Tony Blackburn, Emperor Rosko, DLT and Mike Ahearn. We had great fun. Tony Blackburn and I were the ones who climbed the mast to free a cable at the top that was stopping us broadcasting.  In the new film “The Boat That Rocked”, two DJs climbed the mast and jumped in the sea. You would never have jumped into the sea from that height. Eventually the station owner Ronan O’Rahilly realised I had a northern accent and I was banished, like a foreigner in the war, to the Isle of Man!!!

What was it like when you first arrived onboard?

The customs officer who met us on the tender in Ramsey Bay took one look at me and said "Are they sending them right from school now"? I was 21, looked 15. It was a wonderful adventure. The ship was bobbing about on the horizon and my career was there waiting for me.

Tony prince and Elvis Presley

Did you anticipate Radio Caroline would be so successful?

It couldn't fail. Until Caroline we had no daytime pop music and suffered Radio Luxembourg’s poor signal at night. Even then on Luxy the programmes were sponsored by record labels that blatantly played their own priorities rather than the most popular tunes. Caroline would change all that. Caroline would see transistors on beaches playing Beatles, Stones and Dylan, that had never happened on a British beach before, there were no Walkmans for cassettes then, CDs a million years from there. With radio Caroline with finally had what the American kids had... our lives were coloured with music.

The Radio Caroline Years have been described as the Golden Years of Broadcasting.  Would you agree?

Surely, for pop music anyway. DJs didn't use scripts - that was the major difference, we could and did say what we wanted and were always mindful that the music should do most of our speaking for us.

Do you think it would work today?

Maybe. I'd listen to silly DJs playing a wide variety of great music. But the media has changed so much. The station would be competing with the internet which is where the future of radio lies, well maybe not for radio but access to your favourite music.  Back in my day when you played a record, you new EVERYONE was listening to it at the same time. The record labels found it so much easier to make a hit record with fewer media outlets to play their music.

Did your time on Caroline help your career?

It founded my career. From Ramsey Bay I flew to Luxembourg to start the first live team from the Grand Duchy with Noel Edmonds, Paul Burnett (former Manx Radio jock) and David 'Kid' Jensen, another truly great air-team because, once again, we were all cast on our desert island in the centre of Europe.

How did you deal with the mountains of fan post?

I had two weeks with nothing better to do than reply to as many as I could.  I used my hand-out Caroline press pictures as post cards and did hundreds each day.

The final night on the island was the night of the day we were made illegal. Dave Lee Travis and I drowned our sorrows in the (then) Palace Hotel. I lost my final wages in the casino and the manager, a dear friend called Alex O'Brian, paid my air flight back to Manchester.

I still miss the fairy bridge although I'm being kept busy these days as co-owner of The Wedding TV Channel on Sky. I still see loads of DJs as my offices are straight across the road from Radio 1. The only pirate I see around is Johnny Walker; I see Rosko whenever I'm in LA and am in touch with Bob Stewart and Mick Luvzit via e-mail. Ugly Ray Terret recently became a friend on Facebook!

Tony Prince has been visiting the Isle of Man to mark the end of the Manx National Heritage Radio Caroline Exhibition "Pirates of the Irish Sea" at the House of Manannan in Peel.