"The following is a transcript of an interview (transcribed by KIERAN MURRAY ) which took place in the Radio Carousel (AM 1386 kHz) Studios in Navan, County Meath , Ireland on Tuesday 11th May 1982. The programme presenter was Pauric Welsh, and the guest:
DAFFY DON ALLEN
"P.W: If there's a distinctly Country flavour to the show tonight, then you will know why when you meet my guest for the evening. He was born in Canada , of Romanian parents; he worked in radio in both Canada and the United States . He came over this side of the Atlantic in the mid-Sixties to work on the High Seas as a DJ with Radio Caroline, presenting what they called "The Biggest Country Show This Side of Nashville". I know you've already guessed his name, because he has just become the newest voice on Radio Carousel here in Navan, he is of course DAFFY DON ALLEN, or DON ALLEN to us. Don, you're very welcome to this programme!
Don: Thanks very much indeed Pauric, it's nice to be on the show.
P.W: How did I do for the beginning, is that an accurate description?
Don: Yes, very accurate indeed.
P.W: Now how did it all begin for you?
Don: Well, I always look back at it in retrospect now; there's a song that Gene Stuart - who is a very good Irish singer - came out with, the song was called "I'm just Lucky I Guess", and you know, since I heard that song, I sort of look back as the years go by - seventeen in all - I came over for a holiday, and at the same time before coming over to England for a holiday, I was working between radio jobs. I was working for a firm known as Canadian National Railways, and coming back from Winnipeg one time to Vancouver , I picked up this old copy of Weekend Magazine - you know these colour supplements that you get out of newspapers - and there was a very interesting article about this ship, broadcasting from the High Seas. I thought, why over in Europe do they have to broadcast from ships? I just couldn't understand why these people were broadcasting from a boat. It seemed totally senseless. At the time, as I'm sure everybody appreciates, radio was state-controlled – even Radio Luxembourg . There was no such thing as Commercial Radio in the sense. But I didn't realise this, because I took Commercial Radio for granted, being a Canadian and having travelled extensively throughout America . I could not grasp this, that radio was not commercial over in Europe . I had not even been to Europe .
Anyway, I had saved a few dollars and decided to see Europe - Paris , London and places like that. I came over here and consequently pure professional curiosity led me to CAROLINE HOUSE.
To cut a long story short - I went up to London one day and I walked into Caroline House and there was everybody and everybody there. I walked up and said to the receptionist”Good afternoon, I'm a Radio Announcer from Canada , could I see the set-up?” She said "Are you a Disc Jockey?” I said 'radio announcer'... We didn't use the term DJ in Canada at that time, however, we sort of came to a conclusion that a Disc Jockey was an announcer and an announcer was a Disc Jockey. Next thing I knew, this Programme Director of the South (Caroline) Ship came up to me and said "you work in radio?" I said "Yes". He said”would you like a job?” And I said”Are you having me on?"
Anyway he interviewed me - I didn't do an audition – and, to cut a long story short again, next day I was on a ship called the "Mi Amigo" which was bobbing up and down like a cork in water, off the Frinton-on-Essex coast. I had never been to sea in my life and that was the beginning of my radio career on the sea.
I don't think Caroline had reached its peak yet. There were people there - unknown people - but very dedicated people, who were yet to be discovered. Names like SIMON DEE, TONY BLACKBURN - I remember him very well. In the early days he was known as Tea Cosy, because his hair resembled one!
P.W: But did he still tell those inane jokes that he tells now?
Don: No! He got that idea from various Disc Jockeys and blended them all together. He got that from a DJ known as KEITH SKUES, who now is Managing Director of a radio station in Yorkshire . England . Keith was a very intelligent announcer and a very witty announcer and of course Tony Blackburn took his style.
He was a good DJ, but I think he had his good looks and the fact that he was the very first voice in RADIO ONE helped him greatly. No disrespect to him, though.
I knew Tony when people didn't know Tony... he didn't even know how to cue up a record when he was on CAROLINE SOUTH. Then he went to RADIO LONDON and said that he owed everything he had achieved in radio so far to Radio London, but Tony also owes everything to RONAN O'RAHILLY and Radio Caroline.
P.W: Before we got on to Radio Caroline itself, tell us something about Simon Dee, because I remember seeing Simon when he had made it very famous on television in England .
Don: As I said about Tony Blackburn, he was young - only in his teens at the time - and he had his looks going for him. Now Simon Dee had had a gimmick going for him, he was officially the first voice to be heard on Caroline. Simon was a very easy going bloke; I think success got to him too quickly. Like the Beatles, you know? The Beatles were just instantly discovered and suddenly BOOM ! Success overnight and it was too much to handle. They tried everything - they went to India , they tried meditation and all this... well Simon, being the first voice on Caroline had that gimmick going for him. After he left Caroline he went on to Radio Luxembourg , then he went on Radio Two and then he had his own television show. Everything just fell out of the sky for him. Everybody who has been on Caroline has been very fortunate; that I can remember. I can name names – Tony Blackburn, Simon Dee - they are just two. Success just rained out of the sky for them. They didn't go seeking it. I don't believe that Simon was seeking a job on 208; I think 208 were after him. The same as BBC Radio Two-then the Light Programme - and his television programme, everything just fell into place. This all happened because he was the first voice on Caroline.
P.W: Of course you worked with TONY PRINCE as well?
Don: Tony? Oh I remember Tony in the old days when he had his Oldham "Eee-ba-Gum" accent, you know. I've still got some of his tapes. Tony sounds very polished now... he's extremely polished.. he's been with Radio Luxembourg now for about fourteen years. But when Tony arrived on Caroline in the early days, he was, well, the only thing missing was his welly boots and little flat cap! He was straight out of Oldham . But his heart was in entertainment. It seems small people are always more determined than bigger people, and Tony did great. He wasn't accepted entirely at first, but eventually he was accepted. He was sent down to the South Ship to newsread... that was totally out of his depth... this wasn't on. Tony just wasn't a newsreader. He was a Disc Jockey. An exhibitionist. An extrovert.
P.W: To put it bluntly. Don, what was it like out on the middle of the sea, playing records?
Don: It's not the first time that question has been asked. In fact when Caroline got towed away, I was offered a substantial sum of money by a Sunday Paper to disclose the 'gory' side of Caroline. And I couldn't do it. I didn't even think about it. The journalist, when he heard my reply, thought that everybody has got their price to pay, but I still refused. I spoke to Radio Caroline Boss Ronan O'Rahilly about it and he said well if you can live with your conscience, go ahead. I still refused to do the newspaper interview.
The station was very unorganised in some aspects, but I'll give you an amusing instance. In its heyday, Radio Caroline it was just bristling with success, no matter which way you looked at it. The agencies were clamouring, queuing up, to advertise on Caroline. Caroline House was in a very posh part of London , and there were so many people walking about that one did not know whether these people were working for Caroline, or whether they were just browsing through. Now I can remember one chap called JIM MURPHY-MURPH THE SURF. His wife was sitting in the foyer, waiting for him in Caroline House. The two directors ALLAN CRAWFORD who owned Radio Atlanta and Ronan O'Rahilly who owned Radio Caroline - had a fall out or something, and when Allan came down, he was in a foul mood. He actually sacked Jim Murphy's wife, who was waiting for him in the foyer. She wasn't even employed at the station! But he just took it that everybody in that house was employed by Caroline.
P.W: Well, I wasn't looking for the sordid details, Don; all I was really looking for was details about the ship!
Don: Well, put it this way, we were well looked after. The food was good. We had duty-free cigarettes. Booze was there... it was all duty free. It was as if you were in a different country. The only thing they didn't do when you came off the ship was stamp your passport. But they would go through your suitcase, and if there was anything you took out, like, say, an expensive tape recorder, radio-, jewellery, or anything like that, you had to declare it in the customs hall, in Ramsey, Isle of Man, Otherwise, you were bound to pay duty when you came back in. Why, I don't know, because technically speaking it was as if you were going to another country. Even the laundry notes had to be triplicated first.
Life actually on the ship... a lot of people, first thing they say, was there any women on the ship? There was never any women on the ship... we lived, breathed, and slept radio. Three years on Radio Caroline was the equivalent to nine years on any ordinary radio station, because when you take on average, you work one third of the day; the other one third of the day is leisure and the other one third is sleep. We were spending three thirds of the day on Radio Caroline.
P.W: Well, did you find it boring or...?
Don: No! Not at all! I don't think I would have been there for three years. I would have been off after the first couple of months... I was dedicated to radio. It was one of the most exciting things that ever happened to me.
P.W: And of course, you did two weeks on two weeks off?
Don: Well, originally on the South Ship in early '65, it was two weeks on, two weeks off, with pay. The pay was exceptionally good for that particular year. I spent March, April. May, June. I came off the South Ship and was all set to quit Radio Caroline because of health reasons; I just couldn't stand the sea. Then I was offered this job in Caroline House itself. I took this from June until September or maybe November 1965. Then they asked me if I would go on the North Ship just as a temporary replacement, because a few of the lads had shifted about. TOM LODGE had gone to Luxembourg . Lo and behold, I agreed to it - reluctantly. I went up on the North Ship and there was only one person left on the ship to carry on broadcasting. BOB STEWART was the only one. So between us we kept the station going-- just the two of us.
P.W: It sounds like crisis point!
Don: It didn't seem a crisis point. That's the joy of it.
I suppose when you have this type of dedication one doesn't count it as work. But let's move on to your own personal life. Say, during Caroline. You were in the public eye in Britain or certainly the public ear. Did your own life change because of this?
Well, I tried my very hardest not to be in the public light when I was off the ship, because later on when I made up my mind that I was going to stay on the North Ship, when we got off, I thought to myself that one week out of three you've got to yourself. And after being on a ship for two weeks... I mean some people, like Tony Prince, liked doing gigs. I didn't. I just wanted to sit back and relax; go to places and, sort of, not be known. I love to entertain people behind a microphone, but I think I would have been lost on stage.
P.W: Yes. but you must have got the fan mail?
Don: The fan mail? Oh golly! In fact they had to start a fan club. I found it totally impossible to adequately and accurately answer the letters. One lady in Yorkshire offered to start a fan club for me and I thought this is a good thing. So I gave her an answer to all the general questions that were asked. Generally it was just radio questions... what was it like on the ship? etc. Generally it was just radio questions. People used to write and say how lovely the boat looked... Tony Prince was one of the biggest offenders as far as exaggerating and stretching details. He used to tell people that we had waiter service out there-things like this!
The crew on the ship were Dutch. We had to adapt ourselves to Dutch food. You were well looked after. The food was exceptionally good, because food was the main thing. We got paid after enjoying ourselves for two weeks! The overall atmosphere on the ship was very, very good. That is the Radio Caroline North Ship.
On the South Ship there tended to be a lot of megastars down there. Ones that ... sort of... made it... let's put it that way. However, there were people on the North Ship that made it too, like Bob Stewart, who is on Luxembourg now. Tony Prince - he's on Luxembourg . That's two. Then of course you have DAVE LEE TRAVIS, who was on the South Ship.
Radio Caroline South was aimed at a specific audience, the South of England - London primarily was their target. Whereas on Caroline North we were just the North. You know, people writing from Scotland , the North of England. Ireland . I remember getting a lot of mail from the South of Ireland - in fact a lot of people that
I have met since I came over here in January (1982) were teenagers at the time. They are now married. They have children of their own and they say "I remember you from Radio Caroline”.
P.W: Honestly, we could stay talking about Caroline all day; I've got so many things to ask you, Don, we might have to do two or three shows. Tell me, were you very sad the day She was towed away?
Don: I was on board. It was the saddest... I sensed it... I'll try to keep this as short as possible because this could get very sad. Have you got any Kleenex? Actually; we were not closed down by government legislation. A lot of people seem to think that we were closed down because of the legislation that was introduced. I will briefly go into why we were closed down and try to keep it as short as possible.
Radio Caroline North and South were being tendered - looked after - by a Dutch tender company, they sold us food, men to look after the ships, and oil to run the ships. After the Bill was passed, Caroline, I believe, was leased out. I won't go into detail there but anyway, to cut a long story short... and be as brief as possible about this. Radio Caroline continued to carry on broadcasting after September the first. It was outlawed - rather legislation was passed against it - on the fifteenth of August down in the South. All the offshore stations and the Forts were legislated against on the fifteenth of August. The one exception was Radio Caroline North. Legislation was not passed on us until fifteen days later. We were given a fifteen day reprieve - it was passed at the end of August, thirty-first of August - midnight. Caroline was legislated against not only by England , but the Manx Government. You see, we were off the Isle of Man. This is a very, very delicate situation, which is another story in its own right. However, the Isle of Man, feeling that after approximately four years of free publicity, which they would have had to pay thousands of pounds for, they were not happy about Caroline being outlawed.
After midnight, thirty-first of August, all the surviving ships that were on the High Seas ceased to broadcast - apart from Caroline North and South. They were the lone survivors. Radio Caroline continued to broadcast and it was on the fateful evening of March the first, I believe, that both Caroline's were taken away by the Dutch tender company. Let me make that quite clear. Caroline South and North were not closed through legislation. They were towed away because of unpaid bills for oil, men and food. And as a result of that, the chains were cut, both ships were towed into Holland and there was every possibility that these ships could have come back, had the bills been met; the bills were never met. Therefore, the two Caroline's began to rust in Amsterdam .
The North Ship was broken up for scrap. The South Ship - there were a lot of Free Radio people determined the South Ship was going to survive. And in later years, the South Ship was taken out of harbour, back out or to the High Seas.
The end of Caroline was because of unpaid bills and NOT government legislation. The day that we first got wind of this; I saw this very powerful tug. It landed a couple of days before they actually came over to the ship; they pulled into Ramsey ( Isle of Man ). They were in constant communication with Holland by Short Wave Radio and they were told when to cut the anchor chain. It happened on a Saturday evening. I had just finished my Country Show. We went off the air at ten o'clock and we watched a bit of television - myself and a few more fellas - and about two o'clock Sunday morning, we were all set to go to bed when we heard this 'thump' on the side of the ship. We all thought, what could that be? -I had it in the back of my mind that it could have been this tug. Apparently men from that tug had come across and had taken over our ship. They had pirated it. We were sort of victim of our own fate. They said they had their orders to out the anchor chair and late Sunday afternoon we were towed away. It took them a whole day to cut the anchor chain, it was that powerful. We were towed away - and we were on the High Seas for a week - the North Ship was, the South Ship was towed overnight into Holland . The North Ship was towed all the way down the coast of England and consequently a week later we landed in Holland . The ironic thing about it - if I may point this out - I started on
Radio Caroline on March the Eighth, 1965. I last stepped off the ship on March the Eighth, 1968. - And a year to the date, of that day, I started on Manx Radio. March eighth is a very, very critical day for me, believe me!
P.W: Now, Don, when you were finally let off the ship on March the eighth, where did you go from there?
Don: Well, I was out of work in radio for exactly a year. In that period, I did, I think, one show, which will I remembered by a lot of people. It was called the CAROLINE REVIVAL HOUR and this was on RADIO ANDORRA , which I recorded in a Paris studio. This went on over the airwaves of Andorra , with the intention that they were going to do a lot of this, but the reception in England , unfortunately, was not as good as they had hoped it would be. It got press coverage. Things like this. I had to quickly do that before I took up my position as Programme Controller of Manx Radio. I arrived there a year after the day I stepped off Caroline. That's when I started working for a living. "
* Don Allen died in Ireland on 13th. May 1995 following a heart attack *
The full article above is available here
You can read more about offshore radio in the Irish Sea here
More about Don Allen here
Read about 'Daffy' Don Allen here