Happy Birthday Radio Caroline!

March 28th 2014 marks the 50th anniversary of "pirate ship" Radio Caroline's first regular broadcasts. We're marking the event with special features.

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From Pirate to Politician

Radio Caroline, the first offshore pirate radio station, which began broadcasting exactly 50 years ago, launched the careers of many famous disc jockeys: people like Roger Day, Johnnie Walker and Tony Blackburn.

But one of the very first Radio Caroline DJs hung up his headphones and decided to follow a very different career path, as our political correspondent Phil Hornby reports, with Sir Roger Gale MP.

  1. David Johns (@davidjohns_itv)

Radio Caroline Birthday Feature - full version!

We've already posted up the two-part features about Radio Caroline's 50th birthday - but if you'd rather watch them all in a single eight-minute mega-anorak session, then here it is!

David Johns reports, starting with a clip of the BBC's Director of Sound Broadcasting, Frank Gillard in 1966, then interviews with DJs Keith Skues, Johnny Lewis, Paul Graham and Roger Day, plus a lovely archive clip of the then Postmaster General Tony Benn MP. Finally Caroline manager, Peter Moore.

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  1. David Johns (@davidjohns_itv)

Here's to the next 50 years, Radio Caroline

Precisely 50 years ago today, test tansmissions began for a radio station that would help to change the face of broadcasting across the UK. That radio station was Caroline - an unlicensed, "pirate" broadcaster, transmitting from a ship anchored just outside British waters.

Here's David Johns to remind us how Caroline fought the law - and what's happened to it since the sixties. He speaks to Caroline's current manager, Peter Moore, plus DJs Johnny Lewis and Roger Day.

  1. David Johns (@davidjohns_itv)

The Radio Caroline Story - Part 1

This Friday marks a very special anniversary: it'll be exactly fifty years since the first full broadcasts began from Radio Caroline, a so-called "pirate" radio ship moored a few miles off the Kent coast. Caroline and the other estuary pirates made history - and made legends of their DJs.

We've compiled three special features about the ship and its history - and here's David Johns with the first - a look back at how it all started.

It features archive clips from the BBC's Frank Gillard in 1966, interviews with presenters Keith Skues, Johnny Lewis, Paul Graham and Roger Day, a lovely bit fo archive Tony Benn (then Postmaster-General) and comment from Caroline's current manager, Peter Moore.

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