Tuesday, 3 June 2008
Christopher England wrote:
: Quoting a previous Steve Leyland contribution:-
:
: : Sadly Ofcom are still coming out with that tosh,
:
: In the heady days of offshore radio it was true though, I saw it
: meself.
: Personally, just to add fuel to the fire, I have no problem with a
: station being financed by the 'owners' smuggling drugs.
Well, I really can't argue with that – after all they also gained finance from religious organisations and lets' face it religion has caused far more deaths than any drug.
To add to the controversy, personally I think all drugs should be legalised. Crimes of theft would instantly drop by a huge percentage.
I had a long conversation with the dutch official in charge onboad the
Ross during the raid and when I told him that we would put Caroline back
on air he said to me:quote "I DONT DOUBT THAT BUT AS LONG AS YOU DONT
BROADCAST PROGRAMMES IN DUTCH WE WON'T BE INTERESTED" .
There are several conversations that occurred in the day or two leading up to the raid, Bruce Purdey, who spoke to the one Dutch Guy on the Landward and the Brits, who basically said the same, 'stop the Dutch and SW', then in Holland we won't be interested. Subsequently on the day of the raid, and i have quoted this elsewhere. 'There would be a license with Caroline's name on it, but we don't doubt it will be back!'
I didn't see anything myself but I have it on 'hearsay' at the time that
the Communicator was being used to store and repackage some stuff as
well.Having said all that, it may not have been everybody behind the scenes
of Radio 819 that was involved, maybe just one or two, you probably know
who I mean. And certainly most of the guys organising the programming
wouldn't have known fully what was going on, but they probably knew
something even if today they deny it.
That's an interesting angle, the Guys on the Landward actually levelled the accusation of drug smuggling at the operators of 819, but that the Ross Revenge was involved. That was absolute rubbish because we were clean living chaps, just struggling with day to day activities.
They did however try to sew the seeds of doubt, like 'what if there was packages attached to the Hull' etc, probably divisive techniques.
Neil Gates <...> said:
Christopher England <...> said:Quoting a previous Neil Gates contribution:-
On August 18th 1989 the officials on the landward claimed that the
station(Radio 819) was a front for drug smuggling. Do you believe them
and do you think their drug profits were financing the communicator?Well, well, well. Very interesting. I don't think I've spoken of this
in public before, but very definitely yes on the 'something' smuggling,
which I'd assume was drugs. They would spend ages adjacent certain
buoys pulling up ropes, loading packages and then letting them back down
again. I remember a conversation with one of them explaining to me
exactly how they would 'weight' their packages to stop them from
floating, and witnessing such a drop, but being very careful not to ask
exactly what was inside. Those they didn't feel confident with would be
locked below so they couldn't witness what was going on. Some would be
given bunks to sleep on and asked not to come up until they were told it
was safe to do so. I'm sure a few Caroline people will have told you
about this procedure at the time.I didn't see anything myself but I have it on 'hearsay' at the time that
the Communicator was being used to store and repackage some stuff as
well.Having said all that, it may not have been everybody behind the scenes
of Radio 819 that was involved, maybe just one or two, you probably know
who I mean. And certainly most of the guys organising the programming
wouldn't have known fully what was going on, but they probably knew
something even if today they deny it.
--
* Christopher England just said that *I was told the story of the packages down below the bouys by a senior
member of Caroline's staff many months before the raid as he had
witnessed the scenes you have just described it didn't take either him
or me long to work out what they had down there!
Well here is another angle for you, whilst out Fishing with our dear old friend 'The Fish', we actually witnessed such a pull about 8 miles from the North Foreland, maybe North East but I do not recall. Fish wanted to go and help the Guys thinking the their Rib had broken, being the nice Guy he was, 'had it f£$k I said lets get the hell out of here', of course it was clear what they had been doing, but no way connected with our activities.
This old issue keeps doing the rounds .. so here's my five cents worth...
You know I can't help but doubt that the landlord of the Ross would be interested in an active way in taking the ship back away from PM because because for what good reason.
As someone else pointed out – if you have something long enough and no one comes up to claim it then after time it becomes yours. Possession is nine tenths of the law or so it is said.
Christopher compared the Ross and it's situation to that of a house.
I think a better analogy than a house is a car because a car and a ship are devices largely for transport and usually depreciate in value over time. A house on the other hand is an entirely different kettle of fish and appreciates over time and quite significantly as we all know.
If someone was to take my old wreck of a car and restore it, pay for the repairs and maintenance, get rid of the rust, put it in a nice safe garage – then I would be a fool to complain .. heck, my last car I donated free of charge to the wreckers because it was a lemon and I just wrote off the loss.
So I would say if you are going to compare a ship and it's predicament to something else then a car makes better sense than a house to my way of thinking. Of course we're all entitled to whatever view on this.
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Quoting a previous DAVE RICHARDS 'JACK SPARROW' contribution:-
That's an interesting angle, the Guys on the Landward actually levelled
the accusation of drug smuggling at the operators of 819, but that the
Ross Revenge was involved. That was absolute rubbish because we were
clean living chaps, just struggling with day to day activities.They did however try to sew the seeds of doubt, like 'what if there was
packages attached to the Hull' etc, probably divisive techniques.
I'm not suggesting the Ross was used as a half-way house, staging post, or whatever it would be called, but it would make sense to use it in some ways, mainly because the Authorities would think it would be the last place they'd use, kinda thing. I can't imagine they'd have managed to get one over Chicago and get the packages there though.
However, the fact that the guys who were running those tenders were also smuggling 'something' was a fact. I can't say it was drugs 'cos I've no first hand evidence, hence my use of 'something', but I did have it told to me by a number of folk that it was quite hard drugs. So be it.
--
* Christopher England just said that *
Quoting a previous DAVE RICHARDS 'JACK SPARROW' contribution:-
'There would be a license
with Caroline's name on it, but we don't doubt it will be back!'
Chicago and I and a few others then arranged big time meetings with the then Radio Authority at Ronan's request. It really was a goer, but it needed the proper application by law. Unfortunately, the station wasn't able to get its act together and so never actually applied.
--
* Christopher England just said that *
Which town ???~
