This weekend will see many of the original DJs of the 80s returning to the Ross Revenge for special programmes on Radio Caroline.
Kevin Turner, Peter Philips, Carl Kingston, Chris Pearson, Paul Mckenna, amongst others will be aboard the Caroline ship, now anchored in the Blackwater Estuary, for The Dawn of the Ross, celebrating when the station returned in 1983.
At the time the line-up included the likes of as Andy Archer, Peter Quinn, Johnny Lewis, Tony Gareth, (AKA Gareth O’Callaghan), Tom Anderson, Jay Jackson (AKA Crispian St John) and newcomers like Dixie Peach, and many others.
Paul McKenna, who was a Caroline DJ in that era, says: “I was on Caroline in 84, and we sounded very different to anything else on the dial.
“Radio 1 was playing pop music and had personality DJs talking between each song. Local radio played some pop music when they weren’t reading out the local lost cats and dogs and doing IBA-approved ‘meaningful speech’.
“Nobody was playing such a wide selection of continuous music as Caroline, often three or four songs in a row, groundbreaking at the time.”
The special weekend was the idea of Stevie Lane and has taken many months to organise. Programmes will be hosted by those on board and will include a jingle package put together specifically for the occasion by Dave Sherwood.
Paul continues: “Those of us who were lucky enough to have known Ronan O’Rahilly, soon realised we were not just joining a radio station, but were part of a movement, a community, and the Caroline ethos of Loving Awareness may seem a little like a hippy philosophy to some, but the idea of including sincere positive messages in-between music was ahead of its time and is ultimately a good one.
“So, as we used to say, on the air back in the early 80s, ‘with love and good music, this is Radio Caroline’. Please join us this weekend for The Dawn of the Ross.”