Pirate veteran Keith still on crest of radio waves
THIS Easter, ex radio pirate Keith Skues resumes a life on the ocean waves celebrating the 45th anniversary of the launch of the illegal North Sea radio stations.
But this time, instead of being buffeted about by the waves, Keith, a veteran of Radios London and Caroline, will be broadcasting from an old lightship moored sedately to the pier at Harwich.
Coincidentally, a new film, The Boat That Rocked, a fictional account of those heady days in the Sixties, will reach the cinema.
Keith, programme director of the old Radio Hallam from 1974 until 1991, rather suspects the film will hype things up a bit.
"A journalist on the Guardian asked me if there was a lot of sex and drugs and rock n roll. There was rock n roll but we never saw girls and we didn't do drugs."
Keith, who used his pirate days as a stepping stone to becoming one of the first Radio One DJs, is reliving his past courtesy of BBC Radio Essex ,which has hired the old lightship LV 18 for the week.
He'll be joined by Tony Blackburn, Roger Day and Johnnie Walker and will be doing a show on Good Friday and another on the Sunday.
He was on the same boat five years ago for the 40th, only that time it put to sea and there was very little accommodation.
"I was doing the 10pm to 2am show and I had to wait until Norman St John did his before I could sleep in his bed," he remembers.
It was almost as bad as his original Caroline days. "That was a very small ship. Radio London was a former US minesweeper with plenty of room. And I was never sea sick."
Keith, who now lives near Norwich, turned 70 last week and is in semi-retirement but still does a late-night show on Saturdays for BBC Eastern Counties and another for the London area.
He is also the official chronicler of those radio days with his book, Pop Went The Pirates, which he is now hurriedly updating.
"Fifty per cent of the original DJs have died. It's been difficult to track down the ones who are still alive, most are overseas," he says.
He started writing when it was all happening and being paid 12 a week, not bad money then.
It should have come out in 1968, until his lawyer asked him if he had studied the small print of the Marine Offences Act which ended the pirates. If he published he was likely to go to jail.
"'It'll help to sell copies of the book, though,' he said but I chickened out." The book had to wait until 1994.
He's still getting tapes from people who recorded his original shows. "There were no cassettes then so they used old reel-to-reels. I've cleaned them up and used them. It's funny to hear that on the BBC."
Pirate BBC Essex will broadcast from April 10-13 on BBC Essex frequencies, 95.3 and 103.5 FM and will be available online.
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Friday 25 May 2012
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