Ken, left, chats to Nick Bailey at the Caroline 40th Anniversary, March 2004

Ken Evans
Colin Nichol wrote from Australia with the story of how Ken Evans was responsible for him being the first DJ who was offered a job aboard Radio Atlanta.

It occurs to me while I browse your site (once again), that little is mentioned of Ken Evans.

Ken is a modest and was a very knowledgeable 'behind the scenes' hard-worker with Caroline. He ran programmes as Programme Director at the HQ in Mayfair. He first encountered the pirates when he bumped into Allan Crawford (Radio Atlanta) in Soho, around September 1963. Ken had been programme Director with Radio 2GB in Sydney and Allan was manager of Southern Music in Sydney, so they knew each other.

I had a radio career here in Australia before I went to the UK in 1963 and as a consequence, was the first pirate DJ to be offered a job. I was recruited because Ken had met me only a matter of a day or two earlier (we had met in Sydney, years before) and he had subsequently given my name to Allan. Allan (above, right) immediately contacted me to tell me of his plans for the prototype pirate Radio Atlanta, and to ask me to become involved.

Like me, Ken moved from Atlanta to Caroline, then to Radio Luxembourg and lastly, to the BBC. At his retirement, he had a special private presentation of "This is Your Life", hosted by David Jacobs.

For some time he lived in Abbey Road London, continuing his enjoyment of theatre and travel, while spending English winters in his original home town of Sydney. In 2004, Ken returned there permanently. He has a unit in a very good and pleasant retirement complex just an hour or so north of Sydney, on the coast, and is very happy there. Members of his family are nearby. He keeps in regular phone contact with friends in the UK.

Ken is currently giving talks on his experiences for fellow residents but says he will not go back "on the road" with the lectures he used to do around England after leaving the BBC.

Remembering Jason Wolfe

Another contact made at the Caroline reunion was George Hare, (left) who was the on-shore agent for Caroline North. George very kindly put us in touch with a good friend of his, Penny Bowskill. Penny is the widow of Chris Bowskill, known to offshore fans as Jason Wolfe, who sadly died in 1986.

Penny has taken the trouble to write about Jason's post-Caroline career. Although she does not have a scanner at home, is hoping to be able to send us some photos at a later date.

Penny's article reveals how small the world of offshore radio is. Penny, George, and Jason were also great friends with the late Guy Blackmore, from Caroline North. She also recalls a meeting with Bud Ballou in the States. Jason had been one of the first people Bud had asked us to try and find, when we first made contact in 1999! (See Jocks, Page 1) Bud lost contact with Jason and Penny after their move to San Francisco.

Photo of George by Doug MacKenzie, from 'Radio Caroline' by John Venmore-Rowland

After Caroline by Penny Bowskill

There was a spell, before Jason and I met – the dates elude me now – when Jason was erecting aerials on top of the BBC building in order to broadcast Radio Free London! He had a 'Jason Wolfe Pack' fan club, and was talking at meetings in Trafalgar Square, promoting independent radio. He also wrote articles for Wavelength and Script Magazine, mainly promoting independent radio, but also some quirky stuff.

When I met Jason in 1969 he was sharing a flat with ex-Caroline jock Jumbo Jim Gordon (Guy Blackmore). They formed a company together called Orphean Honk(!) putting discos and dancers into London pubs. Jason himself did The Greyhound every Sunday lunchtime. It was great fun! We were married in 1972 at Caxton Hall – very 70s! He freelanced with the BBC, LBC, Radio Nordzee (with Don Allen) and Capital.

In 1976 we moved to San Francisco (on my Green Card) and Jason freelanced with PBS Radio and had a weekend slot on KALX, the local Berkeley University radio station. Again he wrote articles for local publications, mostly on a variety of nutty stuff and some poems too. Johnnie Walker was in SF briefly whilst we were there, and I think they met up. Before we arrived in San Francisco we did that deal they have in the US where you drive and deliver a car from one coast to another. We drove from New York to San Francisco this way, and on the way met up with Bud Ballou (ex-Caroline jock Howie Castle) in Syracuse, New York, for a couple of days. That was a fun visit. We had also (on our honeymoon I think) met up with Manfred Sommer (ex-Caroline engineer) in Graz, Austria. So Radio Caroline was quite an item in my life, even though it was pretty much all over by the time I met Jason.

So, as you can tell, I was greatly influenced by Jason in this independent radio business. Encouraged by him, I went on to work as PA to Terry Bate who, at that time (1972-ish), was leading the franchise bid for the London News commercial radio station on behalf of The Evening Standard and Beaverbrook Newspapers. Radio Caroline (well, Ronan O'Rahilly) had brought Terry over from Canada prior to this, where he had been quite an innovator at the Radio Advertising Bureau in Toronto, working with Howard Heller. He was appointed Advertising Director for Radio Caroline, bringing with him a wealth of expertise in that field. His franchise for Beaverbrook Broadcasting unfortunately did not win the bid, but I moved on to the people who did, as PA to the Chairman and CEO of LBC. It was a couple of years later that we moved to San Francisco.

We returned to the UK in 1983 with a son and a daughter. BBC Radio Reading actually interviewed Jason live on air about the Radio Caroline Days, which is a bit of a turn around. He worked for Radio Thamesmead back in London and did film-extra work ,whilst taking a year's course at the City Lit in drama, he had lots of small character-parts in film and TV and a couple of TV commercials. He lectured regularly to the police on how to handle radio and TV interviews, and was actually leading quite a stable life at this point! Then his health started failing and in 1986 he died of cancer. Our kids were 4 and 6 years old.

Our son Drummond is now an actor in London, mostly for the love of it at this point, despite 3 years' professional training and an MA! But enjoying life a lot. And our daughter Polly is a groom and horse trainer in the Malvern Hills in Worcester, which she loves. Jason was a great believer in working at a job which you enjoy, life's too short not to.

Jumbo Jim Gordon (Guy Blackmore) went on to be a regular Presenter for Thames Television before he returned to Australia with an Australian wife he met in London. Sadly, Guy also died, a few years ago now. I am in close touch with Wendy Blackmore and also Guy's sister Liz who lives in LA.

The End for the Mi Amigo

This newspaper clipping, kindly supplied by Craig Blum, is from the Evening News, March 20th, 1980. To read a much larger version, click on the picture.

The same story, as reported in the London Evening Standard, is on the Pirate Radio Hall of Fame.

Tony tells it like it is

In the autumn of 1965, sixteen-year old ardent Caroline fan, Alan Hardy, was shocked to hear that Tony Blackburn planned to defect from the Mi Amigo to the Galaxy. Alan, who was not particularly enamoured of Radio London, wrote and told Tony how upset he'd been by the news and he received the reply below.

From Tony's answer, dated October 11th 1965, it would seem that Alan had accused him of being a traitor! Tony reveals that the DJs from the two ships, although 'on-air rivals', are friendly. He gives a major reason for his intended defection as his disapproval of the way in which his friends Mike Allan, Garry Kemp, Roger Gale, Doug Kerr and Bob Walton had been obliged to leave.

Tony was initially approached to join Big L, but was required to change his name to 'Mark Roman' and dress in a toga. He refused, because he had already established a career under his own name. So it was that Wimbledon Palais DJ Graham Wallace donned the toga and joined Radio London on October 19th in the guise of the Roman Emperor. Tony Blackburn did not actually jump ship till eight months later, joining Radio London on June 7th 1966 – and keeping his own name.

Click on the two letter pages below to see legible versions.