How Pirate Radio Changed My Life | From Radio Caroline to Bosnia

An Englishman in the Balkans is a weekly podcast about the people, places and everyday life of Bosnia and Herzegovina, told by David Bailey, who has lived here for more than 25 years. New episodes arrive every Tuesday.

Pirate radio, Radio Caroline and the offshore stations of the 1960s changed British broadcasting, and quietly shaped the direction of my own life.

On 14 August 1967, the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act came into force in Britain. Most offshore radio stations closed, although Radio Caroline famously continued. As a young teenager listening in London, I couldn’t have known that the excitement of finding those voices on the radio dial would remain with me for almost sixty years.

In this personal episode, I trace my journey from listening to offshore radio and becoming involved with the land-based pirate station Radio Jackie in 1968, through volunteering with BFBS in Germany and launching Punch FM under a Restricted Service Licence in 1993.

That journey also took me to BBC Radio Surrey, 2-TEN FM and back to BFBS as a contract presenter. Eventually, I brought those accumulated experiences to Bosnia and Herzegovina, where I helped create Oksigen FM, an independent station offering young people a musical window into the wider world during the difficult postwar years.

Today, the ships, transmitters and crackling medium-wave signals have largely given way to microphones, digital editing and podcast feeds. Yet the essential idea remains: one person speaking in one place can reach another person somewhere far away.

Now I continue that journey from a village near Laktaši through An Englishman in the Balkans, sharing the people, places and everyday life of the country I call home.

Almost sixty years after first discovering offshore radio, I am still following that signal.

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Every episode, and more about my life here, is at anenglishmaninthebalkans.com.

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