Posted by Peter Moore on the Garry Stevens board,

Morning all,

As many will know, Working Title Films are making a film about a pirate radio ship. Four times they sent scouts and set designers to view Ross Revenge and I of course hoped they would hire her. In the event they hired a bigger and more mobile ship. I was a bit p----d off since I had used four days of my time accomodating these guys.

However, during these visits they had photographed and measured every inch of the boat and had noticed various items of vintage gear. In spite of searching around they could not find similar gear for their film set.

So, they asked to hire the contents of the 558 studio and then the Overdrive Studio and then SW radio sets and much other stuff. I asked my colleague Alan Beech to liase with them and, under his supervision, all this stuff was taken to Shepperton Film Studios.

Alan and his colleague Lee, were then employed to help re-assemble all the gear in two replica studio's. Then it was realised that while they wanted old gear, for the era that the film was set in, the stuff needed to look new. So the people at Shepperton then refurbished our stuff to look as if it had just come out of the box.

After that they further decided that the plot required the ship to sink and we were not keen on them submerging all our stuff in a tank of water, so they relicated the replicas, with two more ' dummy ' studios that could be immersed.

Then ' phew ' they decided that the plot needed a rival pirate ship and that needed two more studios, so Alan sourced two sets of vintage gear and hired those to Shepperton as well.

Last I heard he was on wages to install this kit on to another ship.

So, that is the real story behind what may have been alleged.

The outcome for Ross Revenge is first that we will get all our gear back looking brand new. Second Alan and Lee will donate all their wages and the hire fee, to purchase needed materials for the Ross. Third, the actual ship chartered for the film has been made to look like Ross Revenge ( after all, it was the only pirate ship that the designers had ever seen ) red and white and with two masts bow and stern.

So when the film comes out we will have in effect, the replica studios now intact again on our boat and a ship that to the general public will be the ship they saw on screen.

I think the opportunities of this may be obvious.

Hope you are all happy with that explanation.

Cheers,

Peter Moore.