91Èȱ¬

There are not many people who can claim to have a place in broadcasting history and been an influence for the next big thing in Britain's cinemas… apart from 91Èȱ¬ Kent's own Dave Cash and Roger Day that is.

And this Saturday (28 March) former pirate radio DJ Dave will be looking back to the pirates' heyday as the new Richard Curtis film The Boat That Rocked docks at box offices.

Dave hears from Richard Curtis and stars Nick Frost and Bill Nighy about the motivation behind the project and their own experiences of the swinging pirate stations which were regular listening for around half of Britain's population in the Sixties.

Talking to Dave, Richard Curtis admits it was his own listening to the pirates through his pillow at night that inspired the new film, and says how delighted he is to meet the voices behind the pirates

Richard says: "I'm so honoured to be talking to you, this is really spooky. This is a great, great, great moment for me. This is like travelling back down the corridor of time and diving into my Roberts radio."

Bill Nighy shares his memories of the time that generated 91Èȱ¬ Radio 1: "You could actually for the first time hear all of the new music all the time, and myself and 22 million other people tuned in everyday. It's hard to explain now, what a big deal it was... there this violent contrast, this change in the music. It went directly from your mum and dad's music which was rather staid, conservative... to Jimi Hendrix burning his guitar, The Who and the Rolling Stones."

And, at their first meeting in more than 30 years, Dave goes head-to-head with the villain of the piece, former Postmaster General Tony Benn, the man credited with sinking the pirates.

Alongside overseeing the Post Office and the country's developing telephone service, the Postmaster General was also responsible for broadcasting policy, putting Tony Benn, now a famed champion of free speech, in direct conflict with the pirate stations.

Dave met up with his once arch-enemy to hear the other side.

"I, like everyone else, loved the pirates," quips Tony. "In fact [Prime Minister] Harold Wilson phoned me one Sunday and said 'what do you think about the pirates?' and I said 'I am listening to them'. But there were two problems.

"One was they were pinching other people's wavelengths. I was getting criticised from all over the place because they were using wavelengths allocated to other countries and the other reason was that they were paying no royalties and the Musicians Union complained. So I saw my job as trying to get the music they were putting out on the pirates onto the 91Èȱ¬... the idea that we were against the music was nonsense. But there were these serious problems."

Plus, there will be a chance to hear some real pirate radio with classic moments taken from Dave's show with his former shipmate, the late Kenny Everett, and the final hour of Radio London, the station they broadcast on, before it was shut down by the Marine Broadcasting Offences Act in 1967.

Dave will also be asking artists, including Marianne Faithfull and John Walker, of the Walker Brothers, what their connection was with pirate radio – all set to the music of 1965 and 1966.

So we invite you to come aboard with Dave Cash at the helm for a magical swinging Sixties pirate party, this Saturday on 91Èȱ¬ Local Radio across the South of England from 6.00 to 9.00pm: Kent, Southern Counties, Solent, Berkshire and Oxford.

For more information visit bbc.co.uk/kent or listen again on 91Èȱ¬ iPlayer.

Notes to Editors

Dave Cash and Roger Day, both former pirate DJs, are available for media interview. Pictures of Dave Cash with the film's cast and with Tony Benn are also available along with photos from Dave's days as a pirate.

HB