The Radio Rose of Texas by Derek Burroughs,
jr.
Chapter
2: I went ahead and did it. Olga Patricia, founder and administration.
Updated on February 26th,
2007.
About
Don Pierson, founder of Radio London and the Olga Patricia Stations[1].
Beginnings
in Texas
...there
wasnt anything that a Texan couldnt do, that a Texan couldnt do better than
anyone else. A Texan could do it better because Texas was known to be number
one in big ideas....
Texas
was the land where your word was as good as your bond if you were among the
good ole boys...Back in the days when (they)ruled Texas...they had...cash,
lots of cash. They were THOSE TEXAS MILLIONAIRES bannered on the front cover
of Time magazine.[2]
However,
when Eric Gilder first met Don Pierson in 1981, his impression of Piersons
Eastland home was that it was no mansion: His home was modest, and inside that
home I found a comfortable, yet modest lifestyle. Don Pierson was a quiet, warm
and friendly person, with an equally quiet, warm, and friendly wife. This was
the man that turned British broadcasting upside down from 1964, and Gilder says
he wanted to know Piersons story:
EG(Eric
Gilder): How did an investor in banks and automobiles become fascinated with
offshore radio?
DP(Don
Pierson): Well, one Sunday, I was sitting here in the sitting room, and was
reading the Dallas paper[3]-we had just returned from England
and Europe from a holiday. And the paper said something about this guy Ronan
ORahilly from Ireland(who)was going to put together a radio station aboard
ship and call it Radio Caroline after President Kennedys daughter[4]. And I mulled about it all
afternoon, then that evening late decided I was going to England(again).So, I
got he family up out of bed, went into Dallas.(and) caught the
red-eye(flight) into New York. Our passports were about expired so we got new
passports, and that afternoon were on the plane into England, and got there
that night....
For the
next few days, I(endeavored to)pay the children I think, 50 cents an hour to
listen to the British Radio programs but after a day, they quit. They said they
couldnt stand an hour of a violin solo and an hour of a woman singing an
operetta without the accompaniment of music.
EG:Given
that these two stations[5]what motivated you to suddenly get
your family together at a moments notice, and fly to England to investigate
this story in person?Well, it seemed like an opportunity for true
laissez-faire, which is free enterprise. The few times I'd turned the radio
on and listened to British radio I'd been bored up the wall. The more I thought
about it, and I thought of the free enterprise radio system in the United
States and what it brought to the people over here, that it would also bring
pleasure to people in England. And this offered a vehicle, if it were possible
to do, to bring both a pleasure to England, plus make a capitalist profit ... I
knew nothing about commercial radio, nothing about shipping.[6]
Don
Pierson was born in Abilene, Texas on October 11, 1925 of parents Rice and
Hazel Pierson. He graduated from Abilene High School in 1943 and served with
the US Army Air Corps as a gunnery instructor during the World War II. He took
a degree at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene while working as a car
salesman, and later attended the University of Texas in Austin.
In 1946
he acquired his first car dealership, a Dodge-Plymouth agency in Comanche.
Postcard
showing Eastland, Texas in the 50s. Unknown source.
Moving to
Eastland, a small western Texas town of 3,000 people, near Fort Worth, he
opened his second dealership in 1953, Don Pierson Olds-Cadillac, with several
showrooms. He went from there to establish a number of other automobile
dealerships in the Lone-Star State including the brands of Volkswagen, Hillman,
Renault, Triumph, Jaguar, Porsche, and BMW.
He
tirelessly boosted his new hometown, and in 1957 reopened the long-closed
Eastland airport, renaming the small grass-strip field "Eastland
International Airport." Later, in the 1970s, he became the first person to
land a jet aircraft in Eastland. Pierson was elected mayor of Eastland in 1960.
Eastland
found itself in the headlines when, as president of the local Rotary Club, Mr.
Pierson managed to convince the Deputy Soviet Ambassador to the USA, Vladimir
Alkimov, to appear as the featured speaker of the club's weekly meeting - at
the height of the Cold War[7].
In 1963,
he established U.S. Telephonics, the world's first computer telemarketing
company. With a number of Abilene business leaders, he founded the Abilene
National Bank (now Bank One - Abilene) in 1964 and served as the bank's first
board chairman. He went into Cable TV and seems to have had a stake in Eastland
County Broadcasting Co owning the local AM station KERC 1590.
From
Broadcasting Yearbook, 1969.
He
attracted once again world headlines when, as mayor of Eastland in 1964[8] he convinced his fellow council
members to ban all smoking in Eastland with a mandatory three-year jail
sentence for offenders. This was meant as a humorous response to the Surgeon
General's Commission negative stand on smoking, the Eastland anti-smoking
decision proved quite prophetic, even if it at the time generated a flow of
negative mail from angry citizens from tobacco-growing states.
Don Pierson. Eric Gilder. Used with
permission.
To the
North Sea
In 1964,
Pierson was sitting at home when he read press reports about the start of Radio
Caroline.
Sensing a
business opportunity, he immediately the day after brought his wife and
children on a flight from Dallas to London. From a Hilton Hotel room there he
started planning the introduction of radio in the American style to British
listeners.
When in
London Pierson chartered an airplane to circle the two pirate radio ships that
were anchored off the Essex Coast until July 3rd, 1964[9]. Both
Dons son Grey and his sister Marilyn were paid to stay at the Hilton and
monitor the radio. He also tried to contact Ronan ORahilly of Radio Caroline
without success.
In the interview, Don Pierson says he paid "the
children" "fifty cents to listen to the radio" .... then he
talks about flying over the ships to see where they were and he
mentions having a camera to take pictures ..... and then he says
"when I got back" ... the children were bored listening to the radio
because of what was being broadcast and they refused to listen any more.
The
original Radio Caroline on the Fredericia anchored off East Anglia photographed
by Don Pierson in June 1964. This picture and the following
is of the "better" pictures. Others are barely of use on the print
but you can make out the shore and the distance to the ship. Eric Gilder. Used by permission.
Radio
Atlanta on the Mi Amigo anchored off East Anglia photographed by Don Pierson
in June 1964.
There must have been fog or low cloud the day the
flight was made and if Don was flying and taking photographs with a
non-professional camera it is no wonder that the shots are not of the best
quality. Eric Gilder.
Used by permission.
But there
may have been more flights later, when the Fredericia had sailed to the Isle of
Man as Grey Pierson comments: I was there and I took pictures. We circled the
ship low a couple of times so that we could get a good shot of the antenna from
the side – this allowed Don to determine the height of the antenna by
comparing it with the length of the ship as listed in Lloyds Registry, and I
was given a transistor radio and notebook to monitor both the new illegal
"pop" stations and the BBC. To my 13-year-old American ear, Caroline
was pathetic, but the BBC was torture.[10]
In spite
of a large wave of music innovation enhanced by such groups as the Beatles,
Rolling Stones, and many others, the BBC monopoly of the broadcasting media
effectively denied much of the new music access to the airwaves and British
teen-agers were missing out on much of the new rock and roll revolution.
Pierson
was quite unimpressed by UK broadcasting to say the least and subsequently
returned to Texas and talked to fellow car dealers about investing in a new
offshore radio station.
With the
aid of good co-workers Pierson bought a former US Navy minesweeper, Galaxy, (originally the Manoula (Greek for mother). Philip Birch, who was appointed to head
the British side of the operation, wanted to name the station Radio
Galaxy. He was overruled, so they
named the ship the Galaxy as a consolation prize[11]), anchored it nearby the other stations, and in December 1964
Radio London, Big L made its first broadcast broadcasting pop music into
England. It soon became one of the most successful radio stations in history,
attracting over 18 million daily listeners at its peak.
For the
first time, millions in the UK heard the American format of top 40 radio,
complete with jingles, commercials, news and weather on the hour, and even
religious broadcasts.
Five
years earlier, other Texan entrepeneurs, Gordon McLendon and Clint Murchison
had gone to Sweden with a similar goal. Their visit there resulted in the
establishment of the Swedish offshore station Radio Nord[12]. Now, Radio London's output was,
like Radio Nord, inspired by the catchy style of Gordon McLendons KLIF in
Dallas, and shop set up in 17 Curzon Street[13].
Postcard
from the 40s? showing Radio Nord, Radio London and Olga stations roots: Cliff
Towers Hotel at 329 E.Colorado Boulevard in Oak Cliff, Dallas, TX. Its basement
was the home of Gordon McLendons KLIF 1947-1950. KLIF later moved to 2100
Jackson Street and then 2120
Commerce Street, in downtown Dallas.(Gilder) Unknown source.
December
12th, 1964. Radio London(Don Pierson planned it as Radio KLIF London) is test
broadcasting off the Essex coast on 1127 kc and in Dallas the mother station
has the Beatles Shes a Woman as #1 in the Forty Star Survey. From Steve Eberharts History of KLIF
with permission.
Two
additional ship-based stations, Radio England and Britain Radio followed in the
spring of 1966.
Radio greetings
from Texas. Post card from the 60s. The studios of the classic stations KLIF
1190 and WRR 1310(also transmitter site) are not far away. Unknown source.
But in
Mid-August 1967 pirate radio came to an end with the passing of the Marine
(Offences) Broadcasting Act.[14]
Pierson
remained almost totally unknown to the British public, as he was a quiet, and
modest man, even if he could be exceptionally enthusiastic and friendly. But in
some circles he was well-known visionary business innovator, communications
pioneer and civic leader.
But his
efforts helped to break the BBC's monopoly on broadcasting and opened the way
for legal commercial radio in 1973. But already in 1967 the UK government,
compelled by the huge popularity of the pirate stations subsequently demanded
the BBC to put a fresh approach to its programmes and networks, Radio One being
a result.
Meet
Waddles...Leisure activites of the Pierson family, London, June, 1966. Daily
Mirror, Tuesday June 28th, 1966. From Hans Knots archive.
An
entrepeneur in many fields
The same
entrepreneurial spirit was present in Mr. Pierson's other business ventures.
They included oil companies, farming and ranching, construction companies, a
cable television network, home banking, a department store, a bowling facility,
restaurants, and a slot car raceway.
His
greatest projects, though, were tax-free enterprise zones in the Caribbean.
In 1967,
Mr. Pierson was contacted by the Haitian Ambassador to the United States and
asked to assist Haiti in its efforts to encourage business investment in that
poverty-stricken land. After years of research and negotiation, M. Pierson's
idea of a privately financed, and -managed free enterprise zone became a
reality in 1971 when Haitian dictator Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier
and the Haitian government entered into a 99-year contract with Mr. Pierson's
company, Dupont Caribbean Inc., to estabish Freeport Tortuga on the old
buccaneer stronghold, Tortuga Island, located about 10 miles off the north
coast of Haiti.
Within 18
months, Mr. Pierson succeeded in building the island's first airport, a loading
dock for seagoing vessels, a rudimentary water and sewer system, an electricity
generating facility, and six miles of paved road. The project created jobs for
approximately 400 previously unemployed Haitians and resulted in the
establishment of a small school to teach various job skills.
The later
failed Tortuga project in the Wall Street Journal of December 21st, 1971. From
Hans Knots archive.
Tragically,
the project came to abrupt end in 1974 after it had been announced that Gulf
Oil Corp. was contemplating investing more than $300 million to build a resort
on the island. The government of Jean-Claude "Baby Doc" Duvalier then
summarily expropriated the project, resulting in its collapse.
He served
as Honorary Consul of the Republic of Haiti to Texas from 1969 through 1974.
In 1979 he
planned a similar scheme in Dominica to be called New Hong Kong. He agreed
terms with the Dominica government to license banks and casinos, but also this
scheme collapsed.
He
re-entered the field of broadcasting in 1981 when he founded KVMX-FM in
Eastland.
Mr.
Pierson was a longtime member of the First Presbyterian Church of Eastland.
Don
Pierson: I went ahead and did it.
Eric Gilder. Used with permission.
Don
Pierson became 70 years old. He died on Saturday, March 30th, 1996 after a long
illness. His brother Ryce Pierson Jr. was already dead then. His survivors are
Annette Pierson, born Grubbs,(married in 1948)son Grey Pierson of Arlington;
daughter, Marilyn Van Zandt of Arlington; sisters, Betty Culver of Abilene and
Doris Broadwell of Tampa; and two grandchildren, Lauren Van Zandt and Trevor
Van Zandt, both of Arlington.
His
funeral was from Eastland Memorial Cemetery at 1:30 p.m. Tuesday April 2nd,
1996, in the chapel of Bakker Funeral Home in Eastland. Officiant was The Rev.
Henry A. Grubbs. Memorials could be sent to Eastland Memorial Hospital
Volunteer Auxiliary or a charity of choice[15].
William(Bill)
Vick, the first Mananging Director of the Olga Patricia operation[16].
Its Mr.Vick,
Mr.Greville. May 1966. From Hans Knots archive.
Larry Dean on
Jack Nixon.
He was involved in the initial promotion of the station. I dont know
a heck of a lot about him. If my memory is correct, he had been in insurance.
He was a heck of a nice guy-a very bright man. And we got along very well, but
really I dont know that much about him.[17]
I never set
out to be remembered. By SREs first program director Ron OQuinn.[18]
I am still amazed that SRE/Britain Radio are still remembered
after all these years.
I did indeed work as Jack Armstrong at WFUN 790 in 1965/1966 and
again in 1968/1969. I came to WFUN from WLCY 1380 in St.
Petersburg/Tampa, Florida where I
was Jack E.Rabbitt.
WLCY
1380 flyer from 1965 featuring Ron, alias Jack E.Rabbitt. From Uncle Rickys
fabulous site at www.reelradio.com/gk/wlcy.gif
After Radio England I also worked at WUBE 1240
in Cincinnati, OH, WYLD 940 in New Orleans in 1967. I
was National Program Director of the Rounsaville Stations and sent back to WFUN
in 1968. I came to KYA 1260 in San Francisco(1970). I hosted a nationally syndicated
oldies show called Rock & Roll Reunion in 1988 and 1989.
Ron OQuinn as Jack Armstrong while at WFUN Miami
in 1965. From www.teddwebb.com
Here are my "musings" from the past. I still stand by
everything that I wrote.
Foreign owned businesses should indeed be managed by locals. I
believe that Don Pierson was responsible for a lot of the failings of SRE and
Britain Radio[19]. Don seemed
to have "an axe to grind" with Big L[20].
Don knew absolutely nothing about running a radio station, but he insisted on
imposing his will on my programming[21].
As he was fond of saying to me "it is MY money." Actually, as I later
found out .... it was not his money. It was the money of other investors. Good
people like Bill Vick.....a true gentleman[22].
Don had the ability to sell people on what he was going to do, but usually he
changed his mind about halfway through the project[23].
For instance: The ridiculous Swingin' Radio England party at the
Hilton.(which has never been paid for)
We needed equipment to be able to do what needed to be done. We needed
promotional money for write in contests and we needed monies to hire British
jocks. Instead we got a party![24]
Guest
list at The party of the year, July 28th, 1966. From Hans Knots archive.
And without consulting me, or anyone else (including Bill Vick) we
got a group of new American jocks that Don had hired.
Don was also the person who hired the Public Relations firm that
claimed to be a "sales team.[25]
That group could not have sold prostitutes in a Mining Camp much less
advertising[26]. Paul was
absolutely correct in his assertion that we needed things to talk about. We did
the best we could under the circumstance. We had the poorest "on
board" facilities of any of the "pirates"[27],
but we also made huge gains in listeners in a very short time. The well-known
picture of the original jocks in the Radio England control room was taken only
a couple of days after the ship arrived off Frinton.
When I first saw the Olga Patricia in Miami I asked Don
where the turntables and cart machines were. He said that we couldn't use
turntables because of the rough seas. I told him that we had to have at least
two even if we were going to use reel to reel tapes for our music. Obviously,
we would have to have a way to record the songs onto tape. I also told him that
we could not use Carousel units in the control room with a live show because of
the noise the units make. He then allowed me to order cart machines and
turntables. I also asked for, and got, Collins control boards because of
their reputation for rejecting RF. When some of the air personnel from Big L
and Caroline applied for jobs with us I then found out that of course they used
turntables.
When the ship arrived off Frinton the new equipment arrived within
a few days. Rick Randall and I installed the boards, echo, turntables, etc.
Neither of us were licensed engineers, but I knew how I wanted it to perform.
We encountered a lot of problems with R/F which caused us much grief. The R/F
problem manifested itself in many ways. One of those ways really affected the
programming sound of the station. The R/F would make the cart machines
"run through" the cue tones. The R/F also made the cart machines
ignore the start button sometimes. So if you called on a cart machine it may or
may not start and it may or may not end. Try running an intelligent show with
that anchor around your neck.
Ron
OQuinn while at SRE. Publicity photo for Swinging 66. From Hans Knots
archive.
I really feel that UK radio progressed at an unbelievably fast
pace because of offshore radio, and that includes SRE and Britain Radio.
I am always amazed that people all these years later still
remember the names of the jocks from SRE and Britain Radio. As I have said many
times. It was just a job. Other people worked in garages, dug ditches, farmed,
fished, etc. while I, and others, worked on the radio. I never set out to be
remembered...... I merely worked for a living doing something that I enjoyed
doing. When I quit enjoying it I simply changed what I do for a living.
I am pleased that I helped start Johnnie Walker and Roger Day in
their careers. I tried to teach them what little I knew in a short time. I hope
that some of it has been of use to them in their respective careers.
Dont
you know...Boss Jocks play much more music! Ron OQuinn interview[28].
My
father was an airforce pilot and my father moved us all to the airforce base
near Moultrie, in south-west Georgia. I started my career in high school in
Moultrie, when I was 16 at WMGA and they are still doing now what they did
then.
WVLD
Valdosta, GA was Ron OQuinns second station. From www.angelfire.com/ga2/charlierowejr/early.html
I went to
college and worked at WVLD, which got me into Top 40 radio. We had to listed to
Top 40 popular music at night-time on the big 50kW stations that we could hear
from Chicago, Nashville, etc. But our local stations were doing the same thing
that was happening in England during the mid-60s. It was horrible radio and you
had to know when to listen. They offered light music at breakfast time and
gospel music later on because we were in the middle of the Bible belt. Then we
would have a teen show late in the afternoon followed by dinnertime music
again. It was basically a block format.
I served
time in the military at Fort Smith, Ark, and travelled from there to Daytona
Beach, Fl. where a station in Tampa heard me, called me and offered me a job.
So I went there and was extremely lucky and had high ratings. Then WFUN in
Miami called me and offered me a job and I was program director and disc-jockey
there when a guy called Don Pierson appeared at the door one weekend in
February, 1966. He was one of the movers and shakers. Texas Senator John Tower
was involved and it was rumoured that also Mrs.Lyndon Johnson was involved.
Jack
Armstrong, or Ron OQuinn in a WFUN 790 contest. From www.angelfire.com/ga2/charlierowejr/early.html
I was a
young 23-year-old guy at the time and my major-market radio experience had been
limited to Tampa and Miami. But Don talked to me about going to England and put
the most powerful AM rock nroll station in the world on the air. We were going
to put two 50kW transmitters on a ship off the coast of England, but when we
got going we couldnt get the power up the way we wanted to. Still we broadcast
with a lot of power on AM and nighttime we covered from the southern tip of
Africa and well into the Soviet Union because of the salt water.
I flew over to Portugal and met the ship there. It had served
in the Korean War and then it was sold to a company bringing bananas from South
America. It was in pretty good shape. In London I stayed at the Hilton for
about six weeks before we went on the air and I had newspaper and TV reporters
tracking me down from America as well as in England. I hired
Larry a couple of weeks after arriving in London.
At the
time, the British population was very young because it was only 20 years after the
Second World War had ended and the majority seemed to be war babies. It was
felt that because the Americans liked British music, then the British should
like American radio because Britain was really hurting for radio. I thought
that Top 40 radio should work there.
I didnt
really like what was going out from Caroline and London. Some things were quite
good and a lot should be different. Record Mirror did a nationwide write-in
poll and at the time Radio England had been on the air for two months it wound
up with 13 million listening on the island which thrilled us immensely. That
was quite an achivement to come from nowhere.
I
couldnt believe radio was controlled by the government.
I
absolutely loved England, the people and I would have loved to stay there. The
people were all for us as well as the record companies. But the politicans were
against us. And the British postal service despised us because we got reams of
letters.
We had a
whirl of publicity because all of a sudden we are the Americans coming to
England and it was probably because the British press thought that the money
that we made was going out of the country which with hindsight was not a good
thing. But some of the press was positive.
I came
back from the Beatle tour in 1966, which I covered with Kenny Everett from
Radio London, a wonderful guy and was stopped at immigration at Heathrow. They
informed me that I could come into the country and quit my employment with
Radio England or I would have to pack my bags and quit Great Britain and to
commute to the ship from somewhere else. They gave me three weeks to do this.
The company publicist decided that we could use this to our advantage by saying
that Jerry Smithwick, Larry Dean and myself had been fired, which was
ridiculous because it wasnt the case. We knew that the end was coming because
the government was insisting that the pirates would be put out of business. So
the only thing we could do was to come back to the States. I had several
offers, and chose WUBE in Cincinnati.
TV Interview, with Ron
OQuinn, May, 1966[29].
Interviewer
Michael...(M.)...off for one week on shore. Their Programme Director is
23-year old Mr.Ron OQuinn. It kind of struck me youre very young to be a
Programme Director. How did this come about?
Ron OQuinn(ROQ):
...ah...Quite an odd thing, Michael. I was working in Miami at a radio station
in Miami and I was approached one Saturday afternoon by a gentleman Id never
met before who wishes to remain anonymous. In fact I havent seen him since and
asked me how Id like to come to England which struck me as being quite
funny...lived quite happily in Miami with the weather etc. And after explaining
to me about Radio England it seemed quite a challenge so here I am.
M.:Why...did
you want to go to sea?
ROQ:...I
didnt really wanna go to sea, but he British Government wouldnt allow us
ashore so there we are again.
M.:Why
have we got 2 stations onboard the ship?
ROQ:
There is a definite opening for a station of Britain Radios calibre because
of the fact that we arent competing with really anybody except that were
playing music about 20 hours a day continous live music for the housewives and
people that do not want to be bothered by the dj on the air, have a listen to a
dj etc. Weve got background music ready for them.
M.:What
about the other station?
ROQ:
Radio England will provide a definite competition to the existing offshore
stations in fact well be on the air 24 hours a day. We hope to have a
completely different sound from what they have, were gonna stress personality
all the way.
M.:Will
it be pop, basically?
ROQ:
Pop, yes.
M.:This
is quite an enterprise. How much does it cost to set up the station?
ROQ:
In excess of 1 Million Pounds.
M.:Where does that sort of money come from?
ROQ:
From British, Canadian and American Investors.
M.:You
cant name any of them?
ROQ: No, I certainly cant.
M.:Well
you probably know the Postmaster General I dont think takes a kind view of
pirate ships at the moment. Whats your reaction to the fact that you may not
have more than a year to live?
ROQ:Ah..well,
actually, I think itll be around 18 months from, I understand before any
action really is put before Parliament. And Governments mean Governments no
matter whose Government it is their...from..may take a little longer than 18
months....if we have to move out theyll probably extend the limit to 12 miles
out and with our power we still wont be bothered too much.
M.:Will
you still be able to cover the entire country from 12 miles out?
ROQ:
I wouldnt know about that. I am not an engineer but I hesitate to answer that
because I dont think we would. Still be able to cover our definite area which
is London.
M.:From
what you say...stay one way or the other.
ROQ:
Yes, and we have an alternative plan..if England falls through we have an
alternate plan.
M.:From
another country?
ROQ:
Yes.
M.:How
worthwhile is it for you to defy possible Government legislation from stop you
being here?
ROQ:I
think as you already know, the existing offshore stations made quite a lot of
money. We only have in excess of 300000 Pounds committed before going on the
air so were here to make money of course. Wed like to make friends with it,
but money is the real answer and its definitely here to be made.
M.:But
arent you reliant on British shores for provisional issues?
ROQ:
Ah, not really, were relying on Holland. Our tenders are from England, but
pick up our supplies in Holland.
M.:Would
you move to Holland if you were banned from our shores?
ROQ:
No, I dont think so...I dont know really Plan B.
M.:Pirates off other shores have been boarded before
today by other governments. Will you be prepared to repel boarders?
ROQ:
Certainly not, Im not a fighter.
(Short
aircheck w. ROQ:
This
is SRE
Jingle:
Positive charge
15
mins after 8oclock MMM time this is David Ballantyne.)
M.:The
Queens Speech at the beginning of the present Parliamentary session ignored
the radio pirates. But the All-American feel to this the largest pirate ship
yet, with these American djs and American Money is unlikely to do the pirate
cause any political good. Although for the time being it certainly means
fiercer competition.
Over to Ben Toney,
advisor in 1966:
Radio
Britain. TV Mail, April 17th, 1966
I missed
the last year of Radio London and I left because my contract had run out which
lasted for 18 months and I hadnt been home in all that time...Id done what I
wanted to do....
Before I
left England, Don Pierson approached me and he knew that I was going back to
the States soon and would I help his program director for a couple of months
and get him introduced to people in the business over here. He offered me a
pretty good salary to do it so I took it. I didnt do very much for them other
than just introduce Ron OQuinn around to people in London...
I think
one of the reasons that they were not so successful and I told Don Pierson when
he brought Radio England over was that he had too many American voices on it.
At that time in the mid-Sixties I didnt think the English would take to it. He
thought that they had really become Americanised so he went on the air with it.
But there were other problems that they had with it that caused them to fail
and also it was coming to the end of that type of broadcasting in England. So
if he had had more time or he could have competed with Radio London. When Laser
came over later on they had over six million listeners and they had quite a few
American voices on that. Other than that I really dont know really.[30]
Part of
a letter from Keith Prowse Music Publishing Co.Ltd/The Peter Maurice Music
Company Ltd. to Ben Toney just after he arrived back in Texas. The letter is
dated June 16th, 1966. From Hans Knots archive.
And then it is over to Tom Danaher who set up Radio London with
Don Pierson and also gave him some assistance on the Olga Patricia project.[31]
Well, it all started when I was an automobile dealer and got
involved in the cable TV business. I had applied for the cable TV franchise for
Wichita Falls in the state of Texas. Another dealer from Amarillo, a city in
the same state, by the name of Don Pierson, who was also chairing the board of
the Abilene National Bank, had just recently obtained the franchise for
Abilene. While talking to him about my application, he told me that he wanted
to join me as a partner. Combining both franchises would be very lucrative and
I agreed to do so. I had already been before the city council and the council
had decided to consider my proposal for the franchise. So, for their next
meeting I told Don to come over — he lived about 90 miles away in
Eastland.
On his way to Wichita Falls Don read a big article in the Wall
Street Journal about Radio Caroline, describing how successful the station was.
In just its first month the station netted about eighteen thousand pounds, at
least according to Ronan O'Rahilly who was quoted in the paper. Don let me read
the article as we were sitting in my office and he said he thought that this
was interesting stuff. We started talking about it and in the end we decided it
was a good deal. I had some knowledge of ships — during the war I was a
Navy pilot and I flew off aircraft carriers — and Don had his connection
with the banks that could help us financially. So we thought it might be worth
looking some further into the thing. So that is how it came off the ground.
Our agreement was simple. He would take care of everything that
could tear — the money and the contracts. Everything that could bend
— the technical and mechanical part of the operation — would be my
responsibility. He persuaded his group of friends to invest in the project and
I got a group of my friends to do the same. After we talked about it, Don
decided to go over to Britain, which he did. He hired a plane and flew around
Caroline's ship a few times, taking pictures. He investigated about the
organization and, sure enough, it was doing really well. While he was away, I
decided to find out where we could buy a ship for our own....
I was not involved in Radio England from the very beginning. For
Radio London Don and I had done all the work. I sometimes tend to downgrade how
much work Don did, because he would go around and entertain the people while I
was sweating on the ship. But he did his part of the job. Anyway, we were
putting our money in, pro-rata, with all the other guys whenever it was
necessary. So when Don and I got together we thought that we had taken the
brunt of this thing and we had earned our share. But nobody had suggested that
we should have a bigger interest in it. So we asked ourselves: why don't we
start another ship? We had the books on Radio London and it was a fantastic
success. Going out and raise more money for another ship would be easy.
So I approached Bud Dillard, a very wealthy oilman and one of my
good friends whom I had brought into Radio London — I know that he would
have probably taken the whole thing himself. I asked him, because after Don and
I had talked about this other ship, Don suggested that we would do it the same
way again: he would take everything that could tear and I would take the ship
and all that. But I said: "Yeah, Don, but on this next ship you are going
to give me some help this time. I am not going to do that whole damn thing by
myself again. Either that or we are going to provide help for me and then we'll
have to bring Bud into it. He will handle all the financial ends and with him
it will be easier to get all the money together that we need. Then I'll have
all the labor that I want."
So we called a meeting again in my office that lasted all
afternoon. We all got the opportunity to say what the proposal would be. But
Don kept saying: "Well, Tom, I feel that we should go ahead and put an
easy listening station and a Top 40 station on her." I said: "You
mean we are going to play thirty minutes of Top 40, then thirty minutes of good
listening music, or what?" But he meant two different stations on the same
ship. I asked him how he intended to do that with only one transmitter. I said:
"We are going to have to house two different frequencies." He said,
that was correct and that he was talking about two 50,000 watt transmitters. I
countered, that this was ridiculous considering all the trouble we had with
Radio London's transmitter, getting it ready to load. You could not even turn
the lights off on the ship. There was so much energy that a fluorescent tube
was already burning when you pulled it out of the box!
I told Don, that I did not think that it could be done. But he kept
insisting on it. I said to him that I would go along when he could prove to me
that it would work, and that I definitely would participate when the ship would
have only one station and if Dillard would be in the game. That would mean that
Dillard and his co-investors would own 49 percent and Don and I would split the
remaining 51 percent — so that we both still would have control of the
operation. Don, however, kept insisting on two stations. I tried to explained
to him that a Top 40 station would be competing with our friends of Radio
London, which I did not believe was truly ethical. In the end, as we were in
disagreement even before we started, I told him I was not going along with it.
Bud Dillard backed me up for the full 100 percent. Don slammed his briefcase
shut, got in his car and went off back to Abilene. I did not hear another word
from him for some months.
About four months later, a friend of mine down at the City
National Bank called me and asked if he could bring two men to my office to talk
to me. About fifteen minutes later these three guys came by. I knew one of them
already, because he was the Chevrolet dealer in Archer City, Texas, which is
about twenty miles south of Wichita Falls. The others were Red Livingstone, a
big, rich oil driller and his business partner. Both men asked me if I was
making any money on that radio ship off England. I told them that I was and
that the operation really was going well. They explained that they had been
contacted by a guy from Eastland, Texas, who had built a radio ship, the
"Olga Patricia", in Miami.
The ship was now ready to sail and they wanted to know if I
thought that putting any money into it would be advisable. I told them that I
could not advise them on that matter and I asked what they had heard about this
ship. They said LTV and Continental Electronics had done the job. So I told
them the story of Don Pierson and how I had advised against putting two
stations on one ship. The only way to do something like that, I told them, was
to could get hold of a surplus aircraft carrier and to put a transmitter and a
mast at one end of the ship and another transmitter and mast at the other end.
It might just work with both mast and transmitters being about 800 feet apart,
but I doubted it.
A few days later the phone rang and it was Don again. This was the
first time we had spoken in four months. He knew I had been meeting the other
two men and he told me that the ship was ready to sail from Miami in a few
days. He said that it did not look like anything I had put on the Galaxy. Since
the arrangement on the Galaxy worked so well and this being different, he was
afraid that it would not be as good. As he had to make a $29,000 incremental
payment before the ship could sail, he needed a second opinion. Would I do him
a favor and come to Miami to look at the construction? Being treated by him the
way he had, I was surprised at his audacity to call me up to and ask me to come
down to help him. But because of my good-hearted nature, I agreed to go.
So I went there, took a look at the ship and, really, it looked
terrible. Then Don called a meeting of the people of Continental Electronics,
where I would present my findings. We went down to the Du Pont Plaza Hotel in
Miami where Don always stayed. Anyway I told those guys that I was not an
engineer, but that I had designed and built the antenna on the Galaxy which was
still up. Looking at the way they had stayed the mast, I added, it would not
last for two minutes in a North Sea gale because of the pitching and rolling.
To this they replied that their computer had said that it would be all OK. They
said, I just had done it by taking things at face value and probably had made
the stay wires much too big. I said them that Don had asked me whether he
should pay them the incremental payment and that I had told him not to do so.
Boy, their faces just hit the floor. I told them that I was not involved in
this thing at all and that I was only here as a friend giving an honest
opinion. Before I left I warned them that the ship probably would not make it
across the Gulf Stream, because the water can be very rough between Miami and
Nassau.
They did not listen. They arranged for the ship to be put into
Nassau so that they could check that everything was OK, and then set sail to Nassau.
After 14 miles from Miami, however the whole construction on the deck collapsed
and nearly hit one of the crew. So Don did not pay them. Then Continental
Electronics called me and asked me if I would team up with their German
engineer and meet the "Olga Patricia" at Ponta Delgada in the Azores.
They hired me and put me on their payroll. Don and I went over there, only to
find they did not have the necessary equipment. So I left for Lisbon with the
ship. Don went ahead of us. When we got there, we worked on it there for about
a week and then I left and I went back home. I helped the German engineer and
gave the benefit of my experience of building the transmitter. Still, the idea
of the antenna was all wrong. To change it for the better was going to be a
major delay for them, so we re-did it as best as we could. That still did not
make things right. All I heard afterwards was how bad it went from then on.
Don had also promoted his venture with some of the friends that I
had brought into Radio London — which I did not like. He never told me
about it and asked them not to say anything about it to me, because of the
falling out between himself, Bud and me. After they got it over here and they
could not get it to work, my friends who had invested at least five times as
much as they had invested in Radio London, were losing money. After seeing the
success of Radio London, they just wrote big checks.
Tom
Danaher and Don Pierson[32]
My
father and Tom were very good friends. They both were blessed with
enthusiastic, friendly personalities, they both loved airplanes, and they were
both automobile dealers. To the best of my knowledge, they first met in
the mid-1950s when they were both Hillman dealers (Hillman was a car
manufactured by the Rootes Group).
My
first memory of Tom is meeting him in London in 1957 in connection with a
Rootes-sponsored trip for its U.S. dealers; I was 6 years old at the time, and
I recall that Tom gave me a model of a Hillman automobile.
The
friendship between Don Pierson and Tom Danaher blossomed. By 1960, each
had his own Volkswagen dealership (Don in Amarillo, Texas; Tom in Wichita Falls, Texas), and from time to time
they worked on business deals together.
When
my father came up with the idea for Radio London (after reading a story about
Radio Caroline in the Wall Street Journal), the first person he involved
was Tom Danaher; in fact, he may have been with Tom when the idea was hatched.
After
he and Tom were pushed out of the Radio London deal, Don Pierson was resentful
of how they had been treated and almost immediately pressed forward with plans
for a new, bigger and better radio ship.
Although
there is a difference of memories, it is my understanding that he very much
wanted for Tom to have a significant role in this deal. This didnt
happen; apparently, Tom had been soured by the Radio London experience and,
consequently, had a much lower level of involvement in Radio England —
but he was involved and did participate.
As
Tom himself has acknowledged, he was rather actively involved in correcting
various engineering problems early in the endeavor. Although he never
received anything, it was contemplated that Tom was to be compensated for his
efforts out of the profits of the venture.
Notwithstanding
various problems, my father and Tom remained close friends throughout the Radio
England project.
The
British Government banned its citizens from advertising on the pirate stations,
the station went off the air and the ship returned to Miami (in 1967).
Subsequently,
well after
the end of the Radio England venture, my father and Tom remained close friends
and business associates. I know this to be true because Tom worked with
Don Pierson on his next project — a plan to create a free port in Haiti
— up until at least 1969.
Heres
my point: If Tom truly believed that Radio England was a dishonest, unethical deal at the time it
was happening,
it doesnt seem likely that he would remain a close friend and business partner
of Don Pierson for at least 3 years afterwards.
Continental Electronics of Dallas
supplied the transmitters and did the engineering work for Radio England.
But the antenna promptly collapsed, the station had problems staying on the
air, etc. Ultimately, the venture failed and Continental didnt get paid.
Consequently, in 1970 they filed
suit against all the participants — including Tom Danaher.
Tom hired a Dallas attorney to
defend him.
In 1972 or 1973, the attorney gave
Tom the following advice: If you can get Don Pierson to sign an affidavit saying
that you had nothing to do with Radio England and that you would have received
nothing even if the business had been successful, I can get you dropped from
the case.
Tom jumped at this potential good
news. The attorney drafted the affidavit, and Tom flew out to Eastland in
his Beechcraft Bonanza airplane to get Don Pierson to sign it.
Don Pierson refused to do so,
telling Tom that, in his opinion, the statements in the affidavit simply
werent accurate.
Tom was understandably furious,
but the attorneys for the transmitter factory already possessed evidence
showing that Tom was involved, and this alone
prevented Toms dismissal from the lawsuit.
If Don Pierson had
signed the affidavit, it would have wrecked Don Piersons
credibility at the trial. As it turned out, Continental lost the case. I
was personally there at the time, and my father and I spoke to some of the
jurors. They told us why the transmitter factory lost: Because
the jury believed Don Pierson when he testified that the failure of the venture
was largely the result of poor engineering!
Thus, it worked out for the best
that the affidavit was not signed. But this is not how Tom perceived it
at the time, and I dont blame him. Look at the situation from Toms
position. He had not been very involved in the Radio England venture;
even if it had been successful, his slice of the pie would have been small; it
wasnt successful and he received nothing out of it but a lawsuit; and his own,
very expensive lawyer told him
that if his friend would sign a piece of paper, the lawsuit would go away.
No wonder Tom was furious and
deeply hurt when Don Pierson refused to sign the affidavit.
Although not appreciated at the
time, it was ultimately the correct decision. But Tom had no way of
knowing this, and he understandably was furious and deeply hurt feeling he had
been seriously wronged by a person he had trusted as a close friend.
Let me add that the friendship did
revive in the late 1980s.
June 26, 1988 was my parents 40th
wedding anniversary and I held a surprise party for them. Realizing that
my father had considered Tom Danaher as his best friend, and ignoring the
strained feelings between them, I called Tom and invited him to be part of the
surprise party. He accepted, and my father was delighted
to see him.
This
helped thaw out their relationship, and Tom remained close to my father until
his death in 1996.
To
this day, I consider Tom Danaher to have been my fathers best friend, and I
personally consider Tom to be my friend as well.
Tom
Danaher is a fine, good man. I cannot and will not say anything negative
about Tom Danaher. I appreciate why he felt the way he did. I am,
however, sorry that the relationship between Tom Danaher and Don Pierson was seriously
damaged by what I now recognize to have been flawed legal advice.
About
Chuck Blair/Jay Kay(Rick Phillips), Radio England General Manager Summer-Autumn
1966:
Chuck
Blair[33],
born Richard Earl Philbrook seems to have come to Radio England in Late July,
1966, hired directly by Don Pierson.
His last
address in the USA was: Rick Phillips, RFD 1 Nashua, New Hampshire[34].
Chuck seems to have come from WBZ on 1030 in Boston[35],
but as his CV[36] reveals, he
was also on a number of other New England stations like WMEX 1510, also in
Boston.
Editor:
Could his on-air name in New England have been Jay Kay?[37]
Ricks on
air name on the Olga and on the Galaxy was Chuck Blair. The source of this was a "Chuck Blair" jingle from
PAMS Series #30 made for WPTR[38].
The Johnnie Walker and Boom Boom Brannigan Sonovox jingles were from the same
origin, see more in the section on jingles.
Outside of WPTR 1540 QSL card from 1965. Donated by
John Sgrulletta of the National Radio Club. http://www.nrcdxas.org
About
Chucks last weeks on the Olga:
We
worked together on the ship for a brief time when he was promoted to an
on-shore position in the 32 Curzon Street office. He "suited-up" for
work each day and I think he was in sales. If memory serves (and it doesn't
always) he may have been instrumental in nailing the Weeta-Bix contract. I can
still remember that commercial as we often played it on Radio England/Britain
Radio. Chuck was a likeable conniver and I always suspected he arranged a
life-time supply of the stuff for himself![39]
I came
to the Olga in November, 1966 hired by Jack Curtiss as News editor and replaced
Chuck Blair.[40]
Editor:
Chuck is
heard on tape on Radio England on its last day, November 13th, 1966 on the Rock
n Roll Revival Hour with Mark Stevens and Errol Bruce with the sponsors
(Keele Insurance) commercial with promises of Peace of mind!
On a preserved
recording of Radio London test broadcasting on 277 metres, 1079 kc, in the
evening of Dec.6th,1966(2200-). Paul Kaye having a go on this frequency
announces Chuck Blair doing London after midnight into Dec.7th.
He is
heard on tape on Britain Radio on December 17th, 1966 on Phil Martins morning
show on an Inter-Cham commercial. On Bill Berrys comment above of Chuck as a
salesman, on the same show, indeed, Weetabix is one of a decent number of
commercials on the show.
Chuck
was in his element on Big L. He made some superb trailers and jingles, and was
extremely popular. The station's demise clearly hit him pretty hard, and Chuck
was clearly absolutely choked-up when he presented his last breakfast show from
0600-0900 on Aug.14th, 1967.[41]
A few
weeks after the closure of Big L, before the start of Radio One, I heard when
Chuck made his last ever appearance on British radio on the BBC Light
Programme. It was on 'Monday Monday' introduced by Dave Cash live from The
Playhouse. On this occasion hanging around the studio were Tony Blackburn, Ed
Stewart and Chuck. At some point during the broadcast Dave had a chat with Tony
and Ed... Then Dave turned to Chuck and said, "And what have you been
doing?" Chuck's reply was, "Well as you heard, Tony Blackburn's been
doing 'Midday Spin'. I've been doing all day nothing!" At which point Dave
gave an embarrassed chuckle and moved swiftly on. This, to the best of my
knowledge, is the very last time Chuck Blair was heard on the UK airwaves. One
presumes he did an audition for the BBC but wasn't successful.[42]
As Radio
One was launched on September 30th 1967, this last appearance must have taken
place in late August or early-to-mid September....I had a letter from Chuck
about being 'off to join Caroline'. This was received on Sept 21st.
George
Hare, who was the land-based agent for Caroline North, sent a copy of a memo he
sent to Terry Bate on August 11th, 1967. It reads: "Here are a few names
of disc jockeys who are acceptable. They will be contacting the Amsterdam
Office." The memo notes that Chuck, based in Harpenden is,, "On
London at the moment. Off about 21st Aug. Salary to be discussed. To contact
Amsterdam."[43]
I'm
guessing that he might have had trouble remaining in the country after he came
off the Galaxy. All the visas in Chuck's 1966 passport were for one month's
duration, on condition that he did not obtain work. This was not a problem
while he was on the ships. Chuck never made it to Caroline, so I wonder what
happened? The last customs stamp in that passport is dated Oct '67, either the
7th or 27th, and is franked Orly in France, which presumably is when Chuck left
for the States...
Paul
Draisey, General Manager of WAGE Radio in Leesburg, Virginia until 1987 tells
that Rick/Chuck worked there as a part-time announcer: What a talent. I knew
that he had worked on the "Pirate Ships" of the 60s and had handled
some of the early interviews, etc. of The Beatles. After working for us for
several years, he left the station and opened a restaurant in Leesburg. He
made the best crab cakes that you have ever had!
Chuck/Rick
died in 1989.
Editor:
Chuck Blair is fondly remembered by many Olga Stations listeners, as well as
Big L fans. What a treat it could have been to hear him on the Fredericia in
Ramsay Bay with the great talent already on Caroline North fronted by Daffy
Don Allen!
Jack
Curtiss now steps up to the microphone:
This is
Jack Curtiss.. formerly of SRE/BR and original architect of the Radio
Dolfijn sound as presented by Look Boden and the other Dutch DJs I hired in
Amsterdam in the fall of 1966. I am so glad the memory of the all-too-brief glorious days of the
Laissez Faire still burns vibrant in the hearts of so many fans.
Pirate
Jack Curtiss 40 years ago. Photo: Jack Curtiss.
Though I
did preside over the closing down of SRE as station manager at the time, the
actual decision to set up Radio Dolfijn was made by the owners. I simply had to
go to Amsterdam and recruit a staff for the new station and keep running
Britain Radio.
I was
initially assigned the "Bruce Wayne" jingle and used it for a day or
two on SRE and then declared I would rather return directly to the states
than disappear under a 'fad" name that would surely fade as
quickly as the Batman TV show did. Boom-Boom (Bob Klingeman) as I recall may
have also used the Wayne jingle before settling in under the Brannigan
monicker. Later just before SRE's demise..someone else used the Wayne jingle
package as well.
Before I came to the UK I was at WROV 1240 in Roanoke.
Though I spent barely two months there (May to mid-July 1966), I was quite
taken with the both the station and Roanoke. It was my first experience working
outside California. Burt Levine, the station owner, was a true gentleman and I
hated to leave so abruptly, but that letter from Pierson inviting me to send an
audition tape to Radio England was simply too good to pass up.
I do
remember telling my later SRE crewmates how very much I enjoyed working at
WROV, what a splendid chap Levine was, and how highly I regarded him.
In Roanoke, I rented a room from Levine's mother and
sister and shared several meals with them in which I was introduced to Jewish
cuisine including tasty chicken-liver pate, gefiltefish and matsohball soup.
I found what I considered to be "Southern
hospitality" alive and well in Roanoke, but then I was a blue-eyed WASP in
Dixie. Had I been something else, my impressions could have been different.
I would
have never in a million years remembered the names of those two WROV morning
guys (Fred Frelantz and Jack Fisher) that followed my all-night "Enormous
Jack Curtiss Show." We did some very funny recorded comedy bits
together.
Jack Curtiss concludes: In the last weeks of
Radio England nearly all my energies were focused on the Radio Dolfijn staff
and kick-off that I barely paid attention to SRE at all. I was not on the ship
for the final day and have only a dim recollection of those who were..it was
sort of a confused time with all the comings and goings in the last days.
There were some bad storms as well that had prevented the normal
rotation of staff and replentishment of supplies. I remember taking the tender
out in near-hurricane force winds and being unable to board the ship..I'd
never seen Graham Gill get seasick before but he was down below in the tender
tossing his cookies. That day proved to me that I was
simply impervious to motion sickness..and with the roiling waves pitching
the tender to and fro and the relentless seaspray in my face I had
the ride of my life. A treasured memory to this day.
Ironically,
15 years after I first stepped aboard the Laissez Faire..I arrived in Miami
where I spent the next 23 years close to the waters from which she sailed for England.
Now I am in Australia, and have got back the mike at Radio Adelaide.
An
interview by Tom Brouwer with Jack Curtiss from Telegraaf Friday, November 4th
1966. An English translation by Look Boden may be found at Jon Myers Offshore
Radio Hall of Fame site at http://www.offshoreradio.co.uk/album9a.htm
Basil
van Rensburg, from advertising and radio to the priesthood.[44]
Basil van Rensburg was born in Woodstock, Cape Town on the 8th of November,
1930. He was sent to a Roman Catholic School even though his parents were not
Catholics. At the age of 15 young Basil became a Roman Catholic.
Basil
van Rensburg as parish priest in South Africa in the 90s.
When
he was 21 he went to a seminary in Pretoria to study for the priesthood. But he
was told he needed to do more living first and sent home. He worked as a bus
conductor, a sound technician at SABC(South Africa Broadcasting Corporation)
and in advertising.
In spring
of 1966, we find Basil van Rensburg in London, and he is presented in TV Mail
as Sales Executive for what was to be a short-lived East Anglia local station
called Radio Tower, starting there on April 16th.[45]
He is a 35-year
old South African, (with) considerable experience of commercial radio and
advertising. He was Radio Manager for AFAMAL, the largest advertising agency in
South Africa, for seven years, as well as establishing the agencys TV Division
of Rhodesia. He was formerly a Technical Producer with the South African
Broadcasting Corporation.
But then
he had already been employed by newly set-up radio advertising arm of Pearl and
Dean, Radiovision Broadcast International Ltd. In the spring of 1966, the
Managing Director of Peir-Vick ltd. William E.Vick signed an exclusive deal
with this company to provide advertising sales for the two radio stations to
broadcast on the radio ship Olga Patricia off the Essex Coast.
Meet
Basil van Rensburg in the RBI team. From Eric Gilder.
Tom
Brouwer(above) writes in Deze zender wordt iets groots (This Station becomes something big.)[46] about the feverish work to set up a Dutch station on the Texan owned
radio ship Olga Patricia anchored off the Essex Coast:
temporary headquarters has been set up
in an Amsterdam hotel. Two Americans and a South African, Bill Vick, Robert
Thornton and Basil van Rensburg, are in residence. And it is here that Jack
Curtiss plans his auditions, getting ready to recruit Dutch disc-jockeys.
Dick
Offringa in a recent posting on Hans Knots
page has stated he was on audition for
Radio Holland in Amsterdam in late
October, 1966:
Zaterdag
29 oktober 1966 vanaf 18.00 uur was in Amsterdam ergens in een pand aan een
gracht de auditie test voor toekomstige diskjockeys van Radio Holland. Ik was
daar toen bijMet ondermeer Jack Curtis en Basil van Rensburg.
Tom Brouwer continues: The
leaders of the pirates are moving out of their temporary Amsterdam headquarters
and are keeping busy leasing an office and looking for staff members. Basil van
Rensburg is responsible for the advertising sales and has a truly big job ahead
of him.
But Radio
Holland was not to be. Instead another Dutch station started on Monday,
November 14th: Radio Dolfijn. And Basil van Rensburg seems to have had
important roles both onboard this short-lived venture and its successor, Radio
227:
November
13th, 1966: Radio Dolfijn Perskonferentie in Hotel Gooiland,
Hilversum, almost 7 months after a similar venue at Londons Caf Royal. Jack Curtiss is speaking, while Dutch
press people are listening. William E. Vick is no.2 from right. Basil Van Rensburg, the
marketing director, is on the far right. Photo: Jack
Curtiss.
In
the radio broadcast of the Press Conference heralding the arrival of Radio
Dolfijn, Basil van Rensburg is introduced as zakelijk leider of the station.
In the press at the time he is billed as a "zakelijk regelaar" in a
picture text in one paper, bureauchef in another and "comercieell
leider" of Dolfijn in a third.
In
March, 1967, when Pierce Langford III had gained control of the two radio
stations on the Olga Patricia, at Dolfijns successor Radio 227 Basil
is Benelux agent and "Benelux-vertegenwoordiger". Also called a "Dutch representative" and "personal assistant" to
John Withers who was Ted Allbeury's man and half-brother of Windsor.
Radioschip Dolfijn in Zaandam. Geheimzinnige
financier(Pierce Langford III) nu bekend.(Dutch press March 9th
1967, From Hans Knots archive)
Twice
Basil was engaged to be married. In his 40s he went to the St Johns Vianney
seminary in Pretoria. This time he was accepted, and at the age of 45, in 1975
he was ordained as a Catholic priest.
He became the priest for Cape Towns District Six in 1976.
Father Basil became a veteran anti-apartheid activist and was an outspoken critic of the apartheid period's
Group Areas Act, which legalized the removal of black people from areas
designated for whites. Forced removals of
families had commenced in 1970 and the bulldozers were destroying the houses.
When Fr.Basil van Rensburg became priest at the Holy Cross Catholic church, the
population of District Six had shrunk to 35,000 from a previous population of
60 000.
Already
in 1966, mr.P W Botha, as the Minister of Community Development had proclaimed District Six as a whites area, until then with a vibrant multiracial part of the city with a
thriving jazz and street culture. The forced removals and destruction of
property were carried out nationwide, but the District Six clearances became a
symbol of the barbarism and inhumanity of apartheid.
Fr. Basil van Rensburg
was there for the community and to be seen wherever the police and the
bulldozer were. Of the little that remained of District Six was the church at
which van Rensburg was ministering. At Holy Cross he continued to celebrate
Mass with his congregation even though they had to travel far to come to their
church.
In the
mid-1980s, The Archbishop of Cape Town, Stephen Naidoo, appointed him to one of
the worst parishes, St Gabriel's in the black township of Guguletu where crime
and poverty was rampant.
Van
Rensburg undeterred by the circumstances used his advertising background to
make the most out of a bad situation. He made his church a tourist attraction.
Many
people visited Fr.Basil here, including Nelson Mandela, the presidents of
France and Ireland, and Chancellor Helmut Kohl of Germany. He became a much
loved priest by the high and the low. His high profile ensured plenty of
financial support for his local church. He used these resources to assists
students and he provided a library, research and study center.
He worked
on a range of programs, including AIDS education. Although he never mastered
the language, Father van Rensburg encouraged the development of a full Xhosa
liturgy at St. Gabriel's, with music from indigenous African instruments.
He spent
a sabbatical semester at the Institute for Clergy Education at Notre Dame University in Indiana
in 1984. Prior to arriving in the United States, he led a movement in 1983
protesting the presence of uniformed and salaried Roman Catholic chaplains in
the South African Defense Force. The protest culminated in Fr. Basil fasting
for thirty days and a change in the South African Catholic Bishops' policy. The
chaplains were withdrawn from the army.
Later at
Notre Dame, Fr. van Rensburg again drew international attention when he went on
a hunger strike in protest against apartheid.
Fr. van
Rensburg developed close ties with the parents of a 26-year-old U.S. Fulbright
scholar who was stabbed to death in a racist attack in Guguletu in 1993.
Fr. Basil
van Rensburg died March 28, 2002 in a Cape Town hospital at the age of 71, from
complications related to diabetes.
The ANC
in their obituary said:
It was people like Basil van Rensburg who
prevented our struggle against apartheid from becoming a struggle against a
particular skin colour, and he prevented religion from ever becoming irrelevant
in the search for freedom and democracy.[47]
An old colonel steps aboard. About the late
Ted Allbeury, the last managing director[48].
The intended
transformation of(Britain Radio)s slick hallmark of quality style into 390s
cosy fireside chat and carpet slippers image didnt work.[49]
After re-financing Ted
Allbeury and Carstead Advertising were head-hunted to operate the new stations
broadcasting since March 16th, 1967, Radio 227 and 355. Allbeury had
advised the owners to not throw good money out, and a sum was stipulated by
Allbeury as to what was needed to hang out until the end. The conclusion of the
Texans was to indeed put up the sum if he would run the station.
The
Texans had said to him: The people that owned the Laissez Faire had been in
touch with me on several occasions. Is there something we could do to merge or
have you run our operation for us. I liked their attitude. The people that
owned that operation really cared about radio. They were Texans mainly. I
rather liked them and once I stared working for then I liked them even more.
.[50]
Daily
Telegraph March 1967. From Hans Knots archive.
Ted
Allbeury goes from Red Sands to the Olga Patricia. Radio
News(in London Weekly Advertiser and National Advertiser) of February 21st,
1967. I do hope that(TA)...will still spend Sunday evenings with us as
usual over the air-waves at 9pm...(Mrs.I.Prosser of Luton in Radio News(in
London Weekly Advertiser and National Advertiser) of February 28th, 1967.)
Bill
Vick is ousted by the Texas owners and in comes a former Secret Service colonel.
Dutch Press from March 15th, 1967. From Hans Knots archive.
The Captain(s) of your ship.
Tender alongside. Rick Randall to the left plus seamen
receiving the Offshore 1. Olga Patricia May, 1966. Photo
from the Pierson family collection, kindly provided by Grey Pierson.
and Colin B.Lukehurst, who stayed onboard until
the August 1967 close down. From Radio
News(in London Weekly Advertiser and National Advertiser), February 21st, 1967.
Capt.
Lukehurst in the final broadcast of Radio 355 said he had more than 6 months
onboard in command of a floating radio station and found it hard to say
goodbye. He mentioned these crew members: Chief Engineer Tony Fisher, Jack
Wayne, Gerard Nievenhuys, Jan Zaan, Jan de Kersey, Jaap Kokker for all their
good work onboard this vessel, also his past crews, especially his agent on
shore, Mr. Niles Martin of Harwich. We shall all miss the radio personnell on
board and I should all like to wish them all the best for the future. With the
closing of this station we have all lost the pleasure of listening to 355 and
with it just another little bit of freedom and life. To all our listeners
goodluck and goodbye. Later regards to Coast Guard and Walton Lifeboat.