Well, the first thing must be how did you get involved in radio ?
Well, I thought there should be commercial
radio, independent radio in the U K. and there was no other way of getting
it except (as we did in those days) have pirate radio, which was of course
the forerunner to the present day independent commercial stations. It was
the only way you could do it - unless you went to America or somewhere else
like that.
Why did you use a fort - rather
than a ship ?
Well, there were a lot of reasons for it. It
makes better sense economically, it's easier to maintain, you have a stable
situation for the men to work in, the equipment to be in and the only
difficulty is it's more difficult to supply than a ship, but everything else
was an advantage.
What were the living conditions
like ?
Pretty ropey. It was full of dead birds and
feathers and droppings and - it was a bit knocked about, too. There had
been a couple of yachtsmen stranded there the year before, 'torn all the
doors off to make a raft because they were dying of thirst. There were 6000
gallons in a tank above their heads but they didn't look! If they'd turned
the taps on they'd have found running water but they didn't do it. Somebody
rescued them before they did drown themselves.
What about the food ?
They used to eat like horses in fresh air. We
had full-time cooks and also some of them took it in turns cooking if they
fancied they could cook a bit. They used to eat well fairly good, strong,
simple food. Nothing very complicated.
What about wages ?
They weren't very high. They varied a bit.
Most of the fellows we had came to us for their first experience of being on
the air, so they were really looking for the beginning of a career (I think
all the offshore radios were more or less the same). The fellows were coming
in trying to build a career and as a result they didn't want a great deal of
money, so the salaries were about the average, I should say, of shore-based
salaries - but of course it was all found.
What sort of equipment was there
in the studios ?
All the best equipment we could get hold of at
the time. We found that in that situation you had to get good dependable
equipment and so if we found anything wasn't standing up to it, it was
rejected and we got something better.
What about the transmitters ?
The transmitters were all custom-made, I had
them made by engineers. Radio Essex was never designed to be anything else
but a local station and we deliberately kept our signal power down, so that
it really did serve Essex, of course we served Kent as well. All our
advertising was not national advertising, it was all country advertising. We
were the only one of the offshore stations that worked this way. We did
there, what these commercial stations are doing now. We acted as local
stations.
We didn't do the up-to-date chat that they do, of course, but we kept news
local. We didn't do, we weren't able to do interviews because with the
tendering work, they were never up to-date enough to use. You could have no
communication between an offshore radio station and the UK - it had to be by
boat - you had no radio link.
What about advertising ?
We used to get a lot of advertising. We did
very well. I think we carried far more advertising than any other station.
As I said basically because we were going for the locals. We didn't go for
the national ads. at all.
We would prepare various ads. which we could take round to various forms of
industry or jobs or shops and if you thought you had a really hot prospect.
But, of course, they weren't used to radio. They'd never use radio and they
used to say "we spend £20,000 a year on the papers and they've always done
us well", you know, "and we can't change" - and all this sort of thing.. We
said to one rather large store once - he'd said he spent £40, 000 a year on
basically newspapers, and we wanted some of this you see. He said "you've
got to prove to me that it'll work" - so we took his telephone number and
said "you won't be able to use your phone in your place here tomorrow". So
all we did was put it on the air: "this man thinks nobody listens to us
-please telephone this number". And he was on the phone within two hours,
pleading with us to stop it, because we'd blanked his phones out, you see.
And it proved to him that it would work. So immediately he wanted two hours
"please call it off and I'll sign". And he signed up a nice contract. You
had to prove it to them like this.
In the beginning, we had to learn radio, we had to learn how to sell it.
People had to learn how to buy it, too.
What about the problems with the
authorities ?
I had problems with the authorities all the
time. It was a way of life with me.
I don't think it was me that was wrong. I think they were wrong! We used to
get certain problems over a while, the customs didn't know how to deal with
it, the police didn't know how to deal with it and so as a result after a
bit they left us alone. There was a time though when the customs wanted to
clear everything in and out, then they decided that they wouldn't and they
did actually leave us alone in the end. We just got on with it and they
didn't interfere with us and we didn't interfere with them.
How did you feel about the court
cases ?
Well, they were a foregone conclusion, weren't
they ? They brought out this bay enclosure line, all right... You see the
bay enclosure exercise had never been tested in court of law and when they
did test it, "yes" they said this was the bay closure line and it pulled all
of us inside the territorial waters, so that was the end of the story as far
as we were concerned. I was prepared to carry on broadcasting and I said I
would if I could get the revenue to come in but of course the advertisers
just would not. They used to ask us to please carry on and maybe they could
do something, but you can't run a thing on "maybes". You could cut the
corners, but you couldn't cut them as fine as that... You know the Marine
Offences Act washed us all up and of course this has been the trouble ever
since. The various other people who have tried the idea out there -they
haven't been realistic about it. The Marine Offences Act: you can defy it as
long as you're outside the English territorial waters, but it just means
that nobody dare advertise with you, if they have a decent legitimate
business in England, they had too much at stake.
Was the whole venture successful
?
It was a successful station. Of course we were
beaten into the ground the last few months, really, because the advertisers
were getting very nervous being with us... There were a lot of threats going
on. People that supply government offices or any form of government thing,
they were afraid that they would get into trouble and lose their business or
parts of their business, so there was a lot of pressure on. But when it was
going, yes, it was fine.
Now a few things about Sealand.
Why did you decide to stay out there ?
Well, again, it's something that needs doing
and it's never been done before and naturally it attracted me.
It will obviously never be done again! They've all learned how to stop it
now but they were too late with me - it's happened, it's arrived and it's
the most challenging thing I've ever taken on in my life and it's
fascinating, very very interesting - wherever you look there's scope and it
was an idea we had. Well we had it before radio, actually. We were kicking
this idea about but the thing was we didn't know whether we could do it or
not because the territorial waters hadn't been defined in a British court.
Because of radio, they were and so we knew where we could do it. So it was a
two-way force really, the Marine Offences Act. In one way it stopped
something, in the other way it started something.
Sealand in the early days
What sort of plans have you got
out there ?
We're going to build a large island, a free
port and a free trade area - rather like the Hong Kong of Europe. The money
is available. It will take 18 months to build, 7 to 14 people out there,
depending on what's going on.
Do you have any plans for any
radio stations out on Sealand ?
Well, I get propositions from people. An
American consortium. I had a religious group wanted to put radio out there
and transmit into Eastern Europe. I wouldn't have it.
When Sealand does do radio it will be done as 'Sealand Radio' and not as a
way of getting at somebody else in some other country. It'll be on the scale
of Luxembourg and going for this sort of thing.
If Sealand hadn't come along,
would you have stayed in radio ?
If I were a businessman here now I would put a
tender in for the local station in Essex now. It's tempting. In many ways I
feel that we did the groundwork and made the situation.
The main thing about it is we do know how to run radio. Most of the
commercial radios in this style are all amateur aren't they ? They really
are.
Just one final thing, what would
you say the most memorable event has been over the last few years -since
you've been involved in radio and forts ?
Everything in that I did seems important to
me. Every day's memorable.
The full version of the Roy & Joan Bates interview can be read in
"The Best of Offshore
Echo's"
still available for £5.00 post free in Europe.
|
Roy and Joan Bates
Knock John Fort in 1966
Roy Bates during legal
action L to R - Disc Jockey, Guy Hamilton, Mike Bereton, Roy Bates, his wife
Joan Bates and their daughter Penny, 1-12-1966
Radio Essex studio
Roy and Joan on Sealand
Sealand flag
Sunday Telegraph
8-6-1980 |
|