Of course, the date makes all the difference as to which Caroline ship Jimmy bravely allowed his precious Hammond to be hauled aboard. (Photos, above, left and below, from 'Radio Caroline' by John Venmore-Rowland. The one with Simon Dee has a caption mentioning 'Radio Caroline South'. ). If it was 1965, the Mi Amigo must have been the ship that witnessed the first live performance from an offshore station, and surely the only live outdoor performance from one! Jimmy was obliged to play on deck when the Hammond proved too big to be moved into the studio.

Jimmy was accompanied by drummer Tony Crombie and guitarist Tony Thorpe. The late Martin Newton was the engineer who resolved the technical challenge of getting the performance to air.

During Roger Day's 40th Anniversary Caroline Reunion, Simon Dee recalled how Jimmy was obliged to defrost his hands in a bucket of warm water before he was able to play! One of the tunes he played especially for the memorable occasion was 'Hip Ship Blues'. Maybe it should be renamed, 'Hip Ship Blue Hands'?

(Left) Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!

Caroline North expert, John Bennett, conducted his own research into the matter:

I read with interest the article above about Vivian Barnard having a press cutting, about the Mi Amigo, Radio Caroline South; being the venue for Jimmy Smith's live performance. I write to say that Vivian is surely correct.

Offshore radio, like most things, has its fair share of popular misconceptions, and it's always supposed that Jimmy Smith played live onboard the MV Fredericia during Caroline's early days. This is perhaps due to the fact that when the Fredericia sailed away to become Caroline North, she took with her the enormous record library consisting of thousands of jazz tracks, many of which continued to be played by the Caroline North jocks and thus giving her that unique jazz sound. I believe Jimmy Smith also laid down tracks for Caroline's early jingles, and Caroline North played such a lot of Jimmy's music, and thus he is associated with Caroline's early days.

I tend to get annoyed when I hear statements such as, "Radio Caroline began broadcasting from the MV Mi Amigo, at Easter, 1964....", as this reinforces the misconception that the Mi Amigo was Caroline's sole ship and bypassing the contribution Caroline North made. By the same token, it's just as incorrect to state that Jimmy's live broadcast was from the Fredericia.

I've spent some hours reading through all my radio-reference books, and took a magnifying glass to scores of photos of both ships – I really should know better! – and have compared the photo of the loading of the organ (above, from John Menwith many shots of the Mi Amigo over the decades.

A ship's appearance can alter such a lot. Even the Mi Amigo of 1964 differs greatly from the Mi Amigo of 1967. Whilst a vessel's general silhouette stays pretty much constant, small areas disappear as time passes. Equipment is cut off or falls off, new things are added and modifications made, add to which the damage caused by storms, several layers of rust and general depreciation and a ship changes.

I have managed, by using photo-zeroing, to pinpoint two areas of similarity from the starboard rear stanchion of the Mi Amigo. (below, left) The first being from the photo (above) of the organ being loaded onboard, and one from a picture of the Mi Amigo in later years (taken by Nigel Harris).

The Mi Amigo was a low-sided ship and thus it was possible to get the organ onboard, whilst the Frederica was a high-sided vessel and I doubt the organ could have been landed without a crane of some sort. When tendering, the Fredericia always loaded at the low deck point on the starboard side, towards aft and past the midship, as shown in the Ramsey Bay photo. John Bennett

Webmaster's note: In 2007, Ronan O'Rahilly, when asked which ship Jimmy took his Hammond aboard, confirmed to Chris Payne that it was the Mi Amigo.

1965: Simon and Jimmy defrost their extremities with the aid of ciggies 2004: "Remember that Hammond?" Simon reminisces with Ronan at the Red Lion

He's the Best Man!

There was a surprise reunion for Keith Skues and Bryan Vaughan in July 2005. Bryan, who lives in Sydney, Australia, was in London on business and had arranged to meet Ben Healy, in town from Edmonton, Canada and other Radio Scotland friends. Ben asked Radio London's Mary Payne if she could arrange for Keith Skues to attend as a surprise for Bryan. Keith and Bryan had been cabin-mates on Caroline South and Keith had acted as Best Man at Bryan's wedding. They had kept in touch, but had not met for some years. Keith was delighted to be able to come and somehow, everyone managed to keep his attendance a secret. Another nice surprise for Bryan was the appearance of George Saunders, Caroline's engineer. (See gallery of photos of the event here).

To mark the reunion of Cardboard Shoes and Bryan Vaughan, we have an MP3 clip of them together on Caroline in 1965, with a contribution from Norm St John. Bryan manfully gives the results of his competition while sounding extremely ill! It is approximately 3m 42s and is 1.5MB in size. We recommend non-broadband users to download the clip before attempting to play it.

From Crawford to O'Rahilly

This letter dated May 11th 1967 and written by Allan Crawford to Ronan O'Rahilly, confirms Ronan's ownership of the Collins 1KW transmitter, and 'various parts' housed at the Douglas Hotel in Douglas, Isle of Man.

Click on photo to read the letter, from the George Hare collection.