Heckington broadcaster Tom Edwards has lived a life behind camera and on air, but also on the high seas as one of pirate radio ship Radio Caroline’s most well-respected stars until the ship was finally taken off-air. Now, his new autobiography reveals what life was really like at sea during the 1960s and what happened when they finally closed their microphones for the last time

It gave a voice to a generation. It was unregulated, unrestricted, illegal. It was free, it was independent, and without it, we would never have had pop music, or commercial radio, or rock music, or disco, or punk or Britpop… arguably, we’d never have had popular culture as we know it. It was pirate radio; it broadcast to almost 30,000,000 people and one of its stars was Tom Edwards.

The BBC’s virtual monopoly on broadcasting before the mid-1960s was challenged only by Radio Luxembourg, whose commercial status was marred by the record companies’ sponsorship of segments to plug their own records – nowhere did there exist truly independent radio, until pirate radio began broadcasting from the east coast of Britain in 1964, just in time for the Beatlemania revolution. At the forefront of this independent, rebellious and explosive cultural revolution was Heckington man Tom Edwards, whose 40 year broadcasting career saw him both blazing the trail of broadcasting and witnessing its demise, leaving the ship within hours of the announcement of the 1967 Marine Offences act of parliament that sounded the death knell for pirate radio. He promised fellow broadcaster Johnnie Walker, who continued to work on Caroline and is now a BBC Radio 2 DJ, that he’d return but instead joined the BBC in Norwich, rather than risking the loss of his passport.

Now, the broadcaster is revealing the story behind pirate radio & the music of the 1960s in a controversial warts-and-all autobiography… but why now?

“Last year saw the release of The Boat That Rocked.” Says Tom. “It also coincided with the 45th anniversary of Radio Caroline, and a week-long recreation of the pirate sound on a ship for the BBC.”

Tom argues that the film, produced by Working Title, the home of Love Actually, Notting Hill and Four Weddings, and starring Bill Nighy, presented a skewed image of pirate radio and that the real story was more sensational, controversial, tragic and brilliant.

The book also covers his subsequent career in TV in the 1970s and 1980s, and reveals the broadcaster’s battle against alcoholism and the pirate radio soundtrack to all of his life’s events.