Radio Caroline - Radio Caroline Flashback

A selection of music from the past five decades

Join Johnny Reece and friends for a wide selection of music from one of the largest album collections on the planet!

A selection of music from the past five decades

Johnny Lewis worked on Caroline in the 1970s as both broadcaster and engineer until the Mi Amigo sank in 1980. He later worked for The Voice Of Peace and Laser 558 before rejoining Caroline on the Ross Revenge. He has also worked for a clutch of Irish stations as well as local commercial radio in the UK – the latest being Academy FM in East Kent. Johnny's other interests including golf, cooking, walking and fund raising for the RNLI. He also gives after dinner speeches on offshore radio, loves to listen to soft rock and soul and says his fantasy date would be Sandra Bullock who he would lover to cook a romantic dinner for, candles the works (the wife won't be happy with that!!) Johnny is also an expert on beer, and promised this year to bring back a brew from the Ross Revenge he made in the 80's... GBH or should we call it "Old Blackwater".

A Caroline listener's music selection 

Paul Brown has always had a great love of music of all kinds although the nearest he got to performing was a choir boy in his local church in Surrey. He was bitten by the 'Radio Bug' when he discovered the sounds coming from the North Sea back in the 1960's and it was then that he decided that he wanted to share music with others – building a makeshift studio in his bedroom (later moving it to the shed!) to entertain his family and the next door neighbour with his cable radio station Radio Aztec. Since then Paul has worked in Hospital Radio and Local Commercial Radio. During his time with a famous automobile organisation he did manage to be probably the only traffic broadcaster to get lost on his way to work when one early morning they closed the M25 and he got lost in the diversion! Paul also spent many years as a club and mobile DJ and has accumulated a large collection of vinyl LP's which started with Sergeant Pepper's and The Best of the Beach Boys both gifts from his mother in Christmas 1967. Recently Paul has been heard on various internet stations and as presenter with The Album Zone. Today, Paul says "Working for Radio Caroline is a dream come true".

In 1984, after working for several landbased pirates in London, Peter got an audition at BBC Radio One. But despite being shortlisted he was pipped at the post by a Radio Luxembourg DJ who got the job due to his national profile. Ironically Peter was then signed up by Radio Luxembourg in April 1985, where he happily stayed until November 1991. As Peter recalls "For me getting Radio Luxembourg 208 was fantastic, and it was surreal to be suddenly working alongside broadcasters that I had listened to all my life... like Bob Stewart and Stuart Henry. All the jocks that I admired the most came from Luxembourg, and before they were at Luxembourg they were at Radio Caroline!" Relocating to Los Angeles he began writing and Dj'ed at Stringfellow's Beverley Hills for the next three years. Returning to the UK Peter also worked at WISH FM Wigan and Mercury FM Crawley. Peter joined Radio Caroline in April 2008. He enthuses "Caroline's music policy is simply how music radio should be! No research needed. No patronising tight rotation of the same old hackneyed hits.. just guys running a radio station who know what they are doing, know why they are doing it, and know what great music is. You're broadcasting to adults. People who know a lot, and expect a lot... They brought albums not just singles... There has been a lot of music made... and therefore a lot of music needs to be played... It's a duty a music station owes to its public!"

When you're young, something very often fires the imagination which stays with you for life. In Barry's case it was music and radio and in particular free radio. From the age of seven whilst on holiday on the Isle of Man; he was fascinated by the Radio Caroline North ship which could be seen out in the bay, thus a lifelong interest in radio was kindled. Whilst Barry’s career in its early days embraced the entertainment and music business, other opportunities presented themselves and whilst away from the entertainment business they allowed the opportunity to enjoy the thrill of building and managing teams, travelling extensively and bag a whole bunch of experiences. Throughout his business life he always kept a keen ear on radio and more than just a listener's interest. Barry says 'Over the years many radio stations have become corporate enterprises and formula driven, but the internet opened possibilities for radio to reach much wider audiences and to be a passion again, with so much choice available it had to be a very special station if I was to become involved as more than listener. In fact, it was my irritation with the lack of good music radio in the UK back in 2005 that steered me to look at Radio Caroline once again. This time from the inside of the Maidstone studios. For me, presenting a show on Caroline is like inviting some mates round and playing them a pile of records that you have pre-selected. Some they will like, another only one will like, and some will bounce you off in a different musical direction in search of a newly discovered artist or a forgotten album'. You can join Barry every Tuesday afternoon between 2 & 5pm. Amongst the pile of carefully selected music, which always takes some twists and turns along the way, you will hear tracks from new artists and albums, and classic and long forgotten albums.

Born and brought up in the village of Great Baddow, not far from the birthplace of radio in Chelmsford, Essex, Lee developed a keen interest in music at an early age, and followed in the great tradition of many a young Caroline listener before him, and often running down the batteries of his transistor radio by falling asleep whilst listening to it under the covers. On leaving school he trained first as a body repair technician at a local car main dealership, before going on to become a Glassblower. Initially, and quite aptly making vacuum tubes for broadcast and industrial applications, before moving onto the world of electrochemical sensors. Lee first joined Radio Caroline in 2004 having responded to a request on the Horizon Magazine website for volunteers to help prepare Ross Revenge for the AM broadcast from the Cruise Terminal at Tilbury, Essex, and has been a part of the Ross Revenge restoration crew ever since, putting the body repair and mechanical skills learned all those years ago to good use once again. His first time on air was at during an overnight broadcast from the Cambridge Rock festival in 2006, and has since taken part in broadcasts from Ross Revenge, as well as other outside broadcasts from Earls Court and the British music experience at the O2 in Greenwich, as well as more recently standing in for other regular Caroline presenters.

Phil was born and bred in the Royal Forest of Dean. How did he get into Radio? – I have asked myself that question; it should be what are you doing in Radio!! I suppose the answer is when my local BBC station was looking for assistants I went along to help with Sports Commentary, I have reported from Henley Regatta, and the National Rowing Championships in Nottingham and Strathclyde, doing a race commentary while riding a bicycle along the tow path. And then along came Caroline, as a young lad I always wished I could have been involved, and now I am very lucky to be. When and why he you first join Caroline? –I have been a listener since 1964, yes really that long, I started listening after reading an article in the Coventry Evening Gazette while on holiday at my cousins. To fully answer the question, after I visited the Ross in Rochester & Tilbury. I thought this Ship needs a make over and a clear out, I have some free time, offer your self..The rest is a very tiring history I love listening to New Music and telling people about it, so Radio Caroline would seem an ideal outlet, but I do go back in time to listen to my old stuff as well.