The Boat That Rocked gave me my break

A thought ahead of the opening of The Boat That Rocked, the movie about the pirate radio stations and Radio Caroline in particular.

If it hadn’t been for the closing down of these stations and the change in the law that allowed legal commercial radio stations, I might very well never be where I am today.

The consequence of the closure of Caroline was a change in the law and the eventual opening of LBC, a 24-hour London-based news station. Through a combination of nepotism (my cousin Peter Snow was a famous success at ITN at the time) and desperation, they took me on.

My very first day as a journalist was on the first day LBC broadcast – read the news at 6.00am, the first legal non-BBC station ever to hit the UK airways (in 1973). Most people at the Beeb didn’t think it would survive, so they didn’t apply for jobs.

Many of the voices on that first day were Aussie or Canadian, so they were pleased to get an Englishman despite his intolerably posh accent.

I often say that I am the oldest man in broadcasting never to have worked for the BBC. Until LBC there was nowhere else you could seriously train. So thanks, Caroline, you did indeed rock. But thank heavens you rocked off when you did!