December 2023

Our next Radio Caroline Southampton Support Group Meeting

Catch up with old friends and make some new ones at the December meeting of the Radio Caroline Southampton Support Group

There are special guests, Alan Beech and Chris Cooper will be talking about his experience on board Ross Revenge over Christmas and New Year 1989. There will be Caroline merchandise, a raffle and a bar. Everyone is welcome for a £10 (first price rise in 30 years) donation, which includes a buffet - and all proceeds go towards the upkeep of our radio ship the Ross Revenge

Come along and join us at 7:30pm on Wednesday 6th December at The Hamble Club, Beaulieu Road, Hamble-Le-Rice, near Southampton SO31 4JL.

September 2023

 Roland Beaney Memorial

On Wednesday evening the 27th of September there was a get together at the Hamble Club, Southampton. This was a memorial for the late Roland Beaney, organised by Alan Beech, Derek May and others.

Report from Chris Cooper from Radio Seagull

"A really pleasant evening, celebrating the life of much-loved and much-missed Roland Beaney, who put in a lot of time and effort over many years to help Radio Caroline, including organising the Southampton Support Group meetings, raising money for the ship, and working as a member of the Restoration Crew. It was a great shock when he passed away so suddenly. Alan Beech and Mandy Marton led the tributes and others, including Albert Hood, added to legendary stories.

Ray Robinson flew over from Los Angeles, Ray presents his "Caroline Archive Hour" shows every weekend which are replayed on Tuesdays, on the Caroline Flashback channel. These shows present highly listenable A.I. reconstituted/revitalised archive recordings of various personalities and events as broadcast on offshore pirate radio stations (including Caroline's Easter Top 500 broadcasts of the 1980s) - this is thanks to the dedicated BTS work of Alan Sheead (who he always credits). 

 Caroline (Album channel) presenter André van Os made a longish trip from  Hilversum in Holland. André does two shows on the Caroline album channel, one on Saturday early evenings and fortnightly on Tuesday late evenings.

Even with a turnout of around 80 people, there were some regular faces missing, including David Williams, Joff Illingworth and Chris Cornell. Maybe not all supporters knew of the event, as it hadn't been possible to access the Address Book on Roland's computer. The meetings will continue, and a new mailing list is being compiled. If you wish to be on it, please let me know and I will pass your details on."

  Roland has been involved with Radio Caroline since the 1990s.

During that time he organised our popular Southampton Support Group Meetings on a three monthly basis. which raised many thousands of pounds for the Caroline ship he loved so much.

Roland organised regular maintenance crews to look after and restore the ship over the years. He also organised awareness events at the Cotswold Motoring Museum and assisted with the distribution of various web shop items. Last year he and his wife Viviane sent out the Radio Caroline calendar, which was a huge task.

 More recently Roland and Viviane volunteered to send out the Crowdfunder Ross Revenge posters and were again planning to take on the task of distributing the 2024 calendar.

Albert Hood

David Esp

Mandy Marton and Alan Beech

June 2023 Meeting

Our Second Radio Caroline support group meeting this year has now taken place. It was on Wednesday 7th June.

Alan Beech then gave an update on the 648AM transmitter news advising us that Radio Caroline have not  been informed of any developments yet on the application for more power on 648AM.

All proceeds from the meeting went towards the cost of getting Ross Revenge into dry dock for essential maintenance..

The Venue was at the Hamble Club, Beaulieu Rd, Hamble-le-Rice Southampton SO31 4JL

June  2023 Photos

Ray Clark

March 2023 Meeting

The Radio Caroline Southampton Support Group Meeting took place on 29th March and it was a very good attendance. DJs Martin Fisher, Rob Ashard, André Van Os and Phil Meek were there and Albert Hood told us another one of his interesting stories.

Nick "Bolland" explained the process of joining the station in summer '87, starting from a visit on one of Albert's "sightseeing" trips, to a call from Cosmic, a lift in his Volvo to Dover and a nervous moment with the duty dog at customs.  Nick described some of the characters on board, including the late John Tyler and explained Radio Monique's Erwin Van Der Bliek's nickname "Erwin On The Blink". He recounted what happened when Ferry Eden went "on strike" and that his friend Tim Allen (present at the meeting) took the experience as his cue to leave his own job and join Caroline. Tim was on board during the '87 hurricane and on the bridge when the mast collapsed.

Thanks also to Rob Ashard for providing an excellent link up with Alan Beech who was in Scotland with the latest news. Thanks to everyone that came along including people that travelled from Wales, Yorkshire, Manchester, Cyprus and especially André who flew over from Holland.

The next meeting is planned for 7th June when Ray Clark will be entertaining us.

Roland Beaney

Nick Carter adds

"Nick "Bolland" explained the process of joining the station in summer '87, starting from a visit on one of Albert's "sightseeing" trips, to a call from Cosmic, a lift in his Volvo to Dover and a nervous moment with the duty dog at customs.  Nick described some of the characters on board, including the late John Tyler and explained Radio Monique's Erwin Van Der Bliek's nickname "Erwin On The Blink". He recounted what happened when Ferry Eden went "on strike" and that his friend Tim Allen (present at the meeting) took the experience as his cue to leave his own job and join Caroline. Tim was on board during the '87 hurricane and on the bridge when the mast collapsed. "

March 2023 Photos

Rob Ashard linking up with Alan Beech in Scotland

Part of the grand gathering

Martin Fisher and  Albert Hood

Albert Hood

Rob Ashard continuing link with Alan Beech

Organizer Roland Beaney reading Alan Beeches report on the solar panels on the 648 transmitter site

Nick Bolland and Andre van Os

Martin Fisher

     yet more supporters 

Martin Fisher

November 30th 2022 Meeting

Another  Radio Caroline Southampton Support group meeting took place at Hamble Social Club on Wednesday 30th November. Our guest speaker this time was Todd Slaughter who brought along Sally Molloy who was crowned world Northern Soul dance champion 2022. She also spoke about her visit to the Ross Revenge recently when she did her dance routine on the deck. Todd spoke about his book called Colonel Parker Hero or Heel that has two script writers and an ITV producer working on a treatment for a documentary programme to be screened in a year.

Rob Ashard spoke about his recent visit to Peter Chicago to pick up an Ampex 351 tape machine that Peter had in storage at home that came off the Mi Amigo in the early 70’s in Amsterdam harbour that was originally fitted in the studio on board the Mi Amigo. It was last seen working nearly 40 years ago!  

Albert Hood then took over to show us some videos that had recently been found of the Mi Amigo and think we spotted the Ampex 351 tape machine that Rob had been speaking about in use in the studio. We are very grateful to everyone that came along and especially our speakers for helping to raise a lot of money for the Ross Revenge.

 Next year our first meeting will take place at the end of March when Ray Clark will be our special guest 

November 2022 photos

Todd Slaughter and Sally Molloy

Rob Ashard

Alan Beech and Rob Ashard

Todd Slaughter and Sally Molloy

Albert Hood 

Southampton Support Group History

Another decade has started and the Radio Caroline Southampton support group meetings have continued to grow. The group was formed when Radio Caroline and Laser 558 were broadcasting from sea but when the broadcasts from the ships closed the group numbers began to drop although a few kept it going by having meetings in their houses. When I took over we found a club in Netley called the Netley Victoria club where many of the original members lived nearby and we were given a small room. We outgrew that room and moved to the main part of the club when numbers grew to over 60.

We have now moved to the Hamble Social club for the year 2020. This has proved to be a big success with numbers increasing even more. We now have a much bigger room with a stage and alcove for our buffets and more room to park. We've hope to have some very special guests this year including DJs and engineers that kept the generators going back in the days the station broadcast from the high seas.

Thank you to everyone that have joined us over the years some travelling many miles from Wales, Yorkshire, Cornwall in fact from all over the country and some from abroad.

The group that now meets in The Hamble Club Beaulieu Road, Hamble-Le-Rice, near Southampton SO31 4JL is thought to be the only appreciation group in the south and its four meetings a year attract people from far and wide. Two regularly travel from Wales, some from Manchester and Leeds a couple of ladies from Ireland, a lady from Belgium arrived at the March 2017 meeting having heard it mentioned on the air and occasionally a man from California has been known to make it over.

Although the group is a meeting of minds, a chance to share memories and talk about the station and radio in general, fundraising plays an important part. The station still has its own ship, the Ross Revenge, now moored in the River Blackwater in Essex and all money raised at the meetings goes towards the restoration of Caroline's ship. The group has purchased a lot of equipment and money is raised through selling memorabilia and merchandise as well as raffle tickets and donations. Albert and Georgena Hood now bring along a large collection of Caroline merchandise for sale during the evenings.

The group has its roots going right back to the days of the Free Radio movement as the Southampton branch. They then had what you might call a resurgence during the Laser 558 era but membership fell away when Laser closed down. The group continued to meet for a long time in members homes and then they contacted the station during a request show. We started promoting he meetings on Caroline and eventually we had to find a bigger venue and we found the Netley Victoria club. With the help of promotions on Caroline we've now got 8 times more people coming along and we grew too big for our side room so the club offered us the main room where we can now expand even further.

All supporters are very welcome to join us and meet Caroline DJs and restoration staff and hear all the latest news about the station and its ship the Ross Revenge. A £5 donation includes a buffet and all proceeds go towards the cost of work on board our ship Ross Revenge.