A FORMER pirate radio station will finally be broadcasting the Queen’s Christmas Message – more than 50 years after being forbidden to do so.

Radio Caroline, based on the Ross Revenge which is moored in the River Blackwater, has been an authorised broadcaster for five years but it’s pirate days back in the sixties meant it didn’t always have the green light.

On December 1, 1964, David Block, publicity officer for the then pirate radio station, contacted the BBC to request a copy of the Queen’s Christmas message.

He was told that, despite Caroline having more than 12 million listeners, his request could not be entertained because Caroline was a pirate radio station, and to come back ‘if and when’ he could provide ‘evidence of credentials as representative of an authorised broadcaster’.

Radio Caroline again applied for permission to broadcast the Queen’s Christmas message this year and this time approval was granted.

Welcoming the news, Station manager Peter Moore said: “Fifty-six years is a long wait, but we are very pleased to now be able to transmit the Queen’s Christmas Message.

“This will be heard on 648 AM in the South East, on DAB in various towns and cities and globally on the Internet, where we have time shifted the message for East and West Coast US.”

Radio Caroline has been an authorised broadcaster since December 22, 2017, when the station took over and returned to use the abandoned BBC World Service transmission facilities at Orford Ness on the Suffolk coast.

For details, visit radiocaroline.co.uk.