At the age of 23, I was gainfully employed as a development engineer with a company called Shorrock Development in my hometown of Blackburn Lancashire. I had obtained my radio amateurs license, a few years earlier, along with a city and guilds telecommunication certificate.

At work it was all the rage to listen to Radio Caroline North, and wondered if they required an electronic engineer, so wrote to the address that was frequently given out over the radio, as Chesterfield Gardens. I recall writing the letter one night and without any application form, or reference, posted it off. Not being very important forgot about it for several weeks.

Then I received an invitation for an interview in London at Chesterfield Gardens. My grand parents lived at Plumstead the other side of the River Thames, so was fairly familiar with London having driven down the A1 and then Edgeware Road, where Caroline house was located off Hyde Park. For the interview, I bought a new suit from Burtons the tailors in Blackburn, and drove down to London within a few days of receiving the letter.

At Caroline house the office seemed a very lively place, the receptionist showed me into a room and was joined by a person who showed me a circuit diagram from a service manual, and asked me to identify and explain certain selected pages. It was a circuit diagram of an amplitude transmitter. This was not too difficult, as I had recently built a similar transmitter myself, being a licensed radio amateur. The interviewer immediately offered me the position as a radio engineer, I was asked to sign my expense voucher, and was given £70 pound in cash. I did not request or expect to receive anything, and would have done it for nothing. I was told to report to Radio Caroline North as soon as possible.

I returned home to Blackburn and the next day an air ticket arrived for a flight from Blackpool airport to the Isle of Man. I had a dilemma, as I did not want to quit my current job, in case I did not like Radio Caroline, so I took sick leave. Arriving at Douglas airport I was met by the agent and with some other people was taken across the Island from Douglas to Ramsey Bay by car.

The journey was full of anxiety, wondering what lay ahead. The weather was gray, overcast, cold, and wet. We arrived at the Caroline office in Ramsey Bay, and on the quay, shown to the office above a shop, that over looked the harbour. The tender that day was late arriving, due to weather condition. The agent took my personal details, including were to send my salary too. Payment was always sent on time, direct to my bank account in Blackburn, right up until the day I left.

About four other persons who I did not know boarded the tender for Caroline. Although this was my first time I had ever been on a tender heading offshore, I felt no sense of excitement. I suppose the apprehension overrode excitement at that time. Some dozen trips later, I never failed to be filled with excitement and proud to be going aboard Radio Caroline.

Boarding Radio Caroline north for the first time was a little cloudy as everyone I met was new to me. Technically my job was meter reading the dials on the transmitter, there were two tall gray transmitters side by side, I was told not to switch both transmitters on together, as there was a combiner problem, one or the other was Ok, but not both. The combiners seemed to be hastily installed between the transmitters and forward looking porthole, just lying on the floor, I was told that the half inch copper coils often melted. With 5WK going into each end, and an antenna tap in the middle, never really appealed to me to try and load them up.

Researching written history, there are some referrals to a combiner problem on the north ship, when the second transmitter was sent up from Caroline south, after they installed the new 50kw continental transmitter.

Written transcript taken from an interview with Don Allan by a Dutch radio station states that the transmitter combiner difficulties were solved. However this proved not to be the case, in my time. At one time I had to provide a written report to a person that came aboard for a short period, I assume that this was the chief engineer. Transcripts mention engineering reports that had to be handed over. Also at that time I must have been considered chief radio engineer on board for that trip, as he was usually responsible for the reports.

On my second trip to Ramsey Bay, I resigned from Shorrock, my permanent job. On my third trip, I was instructed to report to Radio Caroline South. This gave me a transportation problem, as driving between Blackburn and Felixstow on the east coast took over 5 hours. By train unthinkable. The main problem was garaging my car in Felixstow. I recall that I just left the car in the road a couple of trip offshore, eventually finding a rented garage. The car I used is shown in my photo album.

The journey to work eventually became one of the exciting parts of life aboard Caroline south. The tender usually left Felixstow around six to eight o'clock in the morning so left Blackburn for the journey south, around midnight. Driving down the main A1, cutting across country in the early morning hours, was an exhilarating experience. I would often have to slow down to avoid birds feeding on grit off the road. There was little if any traffic around at that time of day, driving along winding county lane at daybreak was wonderful.

I don't recall at Felixstow docks their being any Radio Caroline Office, but have vague recollection of some sort of porta cabin, but may be wrong about that. Crew changes were always a good time to catch up with events, both on Caroline, and also what the DJ's had been doing in their week off in London, most were booked up for some show or other. Communication between ship and agent was via ham radio. The agent was a licence amateur but never used his call sign for some reason!

Again most of my time on board was watch keeping, and recording meter reading on the transmitter. During my time aboard the Mi Amigo during the 60's I was not aware of the past history of the ship, and events that had happened to the ship, or the events that took place after I left. Nobody on board talked about past events, and being young and new on board, never thought to enquire. Recent web research has turned up some interesting reports, some conflicting concerning not just events, but also the sequence of events themselves.

It transpired, that my time aboard ship was shortly after Radio Caroline had gone aground, off Frinton shore. The ship eventually returned to the same anchorage after a spell in Holland. Reports mention that the new transmitter was installed on the move back to anchorage. I knew the 50KW Continental transmitter very well and during my time on board, it did not have any major failures, or antenna problems.

Reports also mention Radio Caroline having a wire “T” antenna with directional problem, even after returning to anchorage with the new 50KW Continental transmitter. I think that this is incorrect as when I was aboard Radio Caroline south the Mi Amigo was fitted with a self-radiating mast, held up with heavy duty guy wires and very large high voltage porcelain insulators. I cant imaging that the change from a wire antenna to a mast radiator took place at anchorage, so the mast must have been fitted whilst the vessel was in Holland.   The reports mention many frequency changes etc, but again I was never told or aware of these past events.

On various web sites, I have seen pictures of “post cards” showing Radio Caroline with either a wire antenna or the mast located slightly forward of amidships. The Mi Amigo's mast was fitted on the forward upper deck, near the anchor chain locker, not near amidships, as claimed to be the Mi Amigo in many pictures.

My initial research was to establish the date that I joined Radio Caroline. This has been partially successful and has filled in much of Mi Amigo's history for me, along the way.

I have established that I joined Radio Caroline South, early in 1967. I left on the last regular shore leave tender from Caroline, the week that the regulations came into force, that date was 14 August 1967, never to return. We left on board Johnnie Walker, Robbie Dale, and an engineer I think called Trevor Grantham.

The odd thing was that I immediately started work for a communications company in London called Redifon, in Broomhill Wandsworth. Several weeks later I was down in the test department when in came Trevor Grantham who had just started working there, we became mates but he had no desire to travel aboard like me, as a commissioning engineer. He told me that he heard of the ship going aground and that the chief engineer was up front in the gale force winds like a wizard tying to turn the ship around. Perhaps this was the event before I arrived on board. I found no mention of the vessel Mi Amigo going aground twice.

I did hear a few months later from Redifon personnel department that my friend had left the company. Records indicate that an engineer called Trevor Grantham returned to the ship and remained there until the ship was cut loose from anchorage and towed back to Holland. Is this one and the same person?

Reports state that whilst Radio Caroline south was being pulled off the sand bank its engines overheated, seized up, due to sand intake to the cooling system. When I started on Radio Caroline North, the main engines were being stripped down having seized up. Thinking aloud I guess that the ship that went aground off Frinton was towed up north were the main engine was under repair when I boarded.

The question is where did the ship Radio Caroline South named “Mi Amigo” that I worked on come from, fully fitted with the 50KW transmitter and self-radiating mast. I will not argue with the historians but have always remembered the Continental transmitter being 100Kw power output, and not 50Kw. One reason is that when testing the transmitter I could instantly make the water boil in the glass tube that connected to the PA valve, which sat in a bucket of water, at the bottom of the glass tube. I don't think 50Kw would achieve this effect.

I recall only several events when we had to open the transmitter doors, the time we did, was in search of a water temperature trip, cured by clearing a couple of very heavy duty air duct fans. Inside the cabinet there were many small solenoid operated circuit breakers, in order to observe the sequence of events, it was necessary to override the door interlocks, and be inside the transmitter whilst it was on, not a pleasant feeling.

There was a small workshop around back, where if not busy, I managed to answer as many fan mail letters as I could. Usually enclosing a signed photograph. This can be seen on my home web page. At other times I repaired several Apex tape-to-tape machines that would snap a one-inch wide tape if the braking mechanism got out of sync, both left and right spool had very heavy duty direct drive motors. Setting the brakes was a mechanical job; they either broke the tape or failed to stop in which case you had miles of tape all over the place.

I repaired both the main and standby reverberation units located in the front panel of the consul in the main studio. Several DJ's liked to use this reverberation effect, whilst talking on air. One day whilst working on the consul, I inadvertently kick the reverb machine. I think Robbie Dale was air that day. It would be nice if he could remember this event, some 40 years later.

For some reason one of the DJ,s did not show up aboard ship one week, so placed a strain on the remaining DJ's to fill the shift roster. I think that it was the chief DJ, Robbie Dale, who allowed me to fill the late evening spots. The missing DJ must have been Johnnie Walker, as I had a go at selecting a car parked along the Frinton-on-Sea shore. This was fun and and not difficult to single out one particular car from hundreds, all flashing head lights in response to questions, such as how many persons in the vehicle, who were courting couples, colour of vehicle, etc. On one show I mentioned that my mate up in Blackburn was very lonely, he received hundreds of letters, much to the dislike of the local postman.

Instructions were received from London (several months before shut down) to install a combiner unit that required a frame welding above the transmitter. A set of loading coils was manufactured on board and partially set in alabaster cement, to hold the turns apart. One engineer welded the frame without a welding shield or goggles; the job got done, but blinded him for several days. Also the same engineer, for some reason hot swapped the audio compression unit, which was located on the left at the bottom of the stairwell. The DJ on duty was totally unaware of this event. I could be wrong but Patrick Starling carried out, both events I think, but not sure. The combiner unit was never tested before I left.

Recently my wife Carol, has scanned all the photograph taken whilst on Radio Caroline and if you have not already visited my home web page, please do so. Perhaps you can identify some names for me. Several photographs in my album shows one of the crew members, that I have called Big John, not knowing his real name. He was a very friendly person who performed ships maintenance, including painting it. He rescued me when I floated away from the ship whilst swimming. That day the sea was very calm and looked as the though the tide had turned, best for swimming, but I began to loose ground swimming back to the ship when Big John threw me a life ring, and hauled be back aboard ship.

It has been mention in articles, that it was a friendly atmosphere on board the south ship, and I can confirm that. Everyone had a job to do, but beside this, there was always an air of excitement conjured up, I suppose from what we were doing, as a pirate station. There were regular gatherings, usually in the library were we would listen to newly released records. Singing to “All you need is love” by the Beatles, produced one of the largest sing along, that end up on air in the main studio.

A box of beer and two cartons of cigarettes were provided as standard issue when boarding, extras could be bought from the captain if required. It was said that the ship could never sink as all the empty cans were thrown overboard from about amidships.

Life was good on board and I would not have mist it for the world. Sadly I left when it became illegal to be on board, but this turned out to be the right decision, perhaps I would not be retired in Thailand like I am now, and proud to be writing these very pleasant and enjoyable memories for you.

Sheridon Keith Street