When writing Shiprocked, the tale of my days with Radio Caroline, it was never my intention to “kiss and tell” about various relations and private goings on aboard the Ross Revenge. There were enough funny, scary, and sometimes downright weird things that happened to us as a bunch without having to expose people’s private lives.
There were a couple of incidents however, which were too funny to leave out, and for which the identity of the people involved was not pivotal to the narrative. So these made it in to the book, with the identity of any parties (other than myself that is) suitably obscured.
One of them is the tale of “Lucy“, and of Carry-On style chain of events that unfolded when I went to wake her for her show one morning.
This story shows my shy, catholic-school bumbling persona to great effect, and my confusion and the effect on my morning news shift is the main focus of the anecdote. However, for the sake of the poor lady involved, who did nothing wrong other than imbibe too freely the night before and become “confused and semi-comatose” I have heavily disguised her identity in the book, with a time-shifting of her period on board, and some blurring of her physical description and origins.
I’m asked from time to time to confirm the identity of the lady in question, which of course I won’t, other than to say that her timescale of involvement with Caroline was brief (so not one of the big names then!).
All the events described in the anecdote happened as portrayed, indeed it is a morning that is vividly imprinted on my mind, even all these years later. But it’s not important to the overall tale of the last years at sea to know exactly when, and whom.
It’s the sort of thing that happened from time to time on radioships.
But not on Radio 4 of course !!
Steve
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