ABSTRACT
The station that truly encapsulated the spirit of offshore broadcasting transmitted for only four months and was originally conceived as a publicity stunt. Initially transmissions ran frommidday to 2.00 p.m., 5.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. and midnight to 2.00 a.m., a scheduling policy not so much chosen as dictated by circumstance, since the station’s equipment was powered by batteries rather than generators, and these needed to be recharged approximately every two hours. The station’s owner, David ‘Screaming Lord’ Sutch, was an eccentric 24year-old rocker who first achieved notoriety by standing for Parliament in the constituency vacated by John Profumo after the Christine Keeler scandal. Later, in the 1964 general election he stood against Harold Wilson in his own constituency of Huyton, where on behalf of his self-styled ‘Teenage Party’ Sutch advocated such unlikely policies as legalized commercial radio, the abolition of the eleven-plus examination, an extension of pub licensing hours, and votes for 18-year-olds.
