Two Walls and a Roof (43 page)

Tempers flew, and within minutes we were all screaming at each other, all well into the blame game. Camping was fast loosing its appeal for me.  Eventually we calmed down and I said to Etta tha
t I’d get the bloody fire going
even if it killed me, and
it nearly did.  I decided that s
cience and my knowle
dge of p
hysics were
the only answer, so I resorted to the one thing I could rely on to burn
;
I would use petrol.

I got under the car and siphoned off a bottle of it from the tank, swallowing almost as much in the process.  Then in triumph I poured it all over the coals. These were still hot, and fumes seemed to be forming. I threw a bit of lighting paper at it, remembering the mother
’
s ‘lighter’ and her gas incident, and suddenly there was yet another explosion. This time the whole area lit up. I remember nearby campers going
,
“Wow look at that fire”, and heads popping out of tents on all sides. Even though the coals seemed to catch fire, they soon went out agai
n, and even more petrol went in
with the same result.  By then we h
ad an audience. One guy advised
us to pull back the car, and others
pulled their children to safety
while my
gang had yet another go at the tent
.

I was now happy because at least we had heat, and to spur it on I added yet another dash of the petrol.  This time the flash was way too close for comfort and I jumped back, spilling the petrol down the leg of the barbecue, which then caught fire, as did the ground underneath it. At that point the onlookers really became nervous. People pulled their cars way back and the fire brigade was even mentioned. After half an hour of this flame throwing, a nice English woman ca
me across from the nearest tent
and said that we were the maddest people she
had ever seen in her life,
that she and her husband hadn’t laughed so much in years
, so they offered to
help us. She gave me the proper firelighters and we were off at last.

I became the chef
and
put on the
sausag
es, burgers and rashers. T
hey were not cooking fast enough for me, so when the rest weren’t looking, I added the last of the petrol
‘
just to speed things up’
. M
ore flames followed, and I was spotted. The food was cremated, having turned completely black and looking like charcoal.  Not to be defeated though, I got out the plates and dished out the
cremated food, assuring my lot
that this was what barbecuing was
all about:
rou
ghing it with burnt food in the open air. S
ure what could be better!
Even though starved, the kids flatly refused to eat anything
.
Etta followed. I was facing a revolt on all fronts. They were all prepared to go hungry rather than eat this black meat, and a strike had happened.  I couldn’t let them get away with that, so I decided to lead by example and attacked all their plates
,
eating down this carbonized food by myself, all the time saying how wonderful it was.  It was awful, but I couldn’t give in at that stage. I encouraged them to just try it out and see what it
tasted like, saying
, “There’s n
othing like food in the open air
when you
’
r
e
starv
ed with the hunger”
.  All of the rebels again refused, and I had to finish the food out of sheer spite.  It was like a lump of lead in my belly.  This lump seemed to get bigger and denser as the night wore on.  Soon it was
time to retire to the tilting h
arem, which looked even worse than it had done out our back
yard, but by then I was wrecked
and prepared to sleep on a stone.

About four a.m. the rumbling in my stomach began, and I had to get up really fast and make a dash for the toilet.  It was locked of course.  By then nature wasn’t just calling, she was roaring. I ran to the dunes in the dark and fell over something, and couldn’t wait any longer.  There and then I did m
y business.  In all of my panic
I had forgo
tten the golden rule of camping which was to
always have a toilet roll handy. I was then in a real fix.  In the dark I reached around and tried to find a paper or some litter of any kind, but there was nothing, and I cursed the Kerry County Council for being too thorough with their cleaning. In the end I suffered the great ignominy of having to use grass to wipe my ass. That was the last straw for me
;
camping was out from then on, I was doing no more of it.

Morning dawned with the rain and wind lashing the tent from all sides. We looked out like a group of caged animals which were completely starved,
(
a truth in itself
)
and in very bad humour once again. I was worse than any of them, having had n
o sleep at all during the night
from my many trips to the dunes. After half an hour of staring at the rain, I said
,
“That’s it, we’re fucking off from this place and don’t mention camping ever again
,
” so Etta says
,
“And how do you propose we do that
?
I’m not getting drowned in this rain”.  Another plan was needed, and Adrian had the perfect answer.  We dispat
ched the others to the car,
the two of us donned our swimming togs, and then
we
set about dismantling the
h
arem and removing all the stuff. It lashed down on top of us but we didn’t give a damn. We dismantled it all in a kind of mad dance, singing and laughing our heads off. Once again we had provided entertainment for the others on the site, and as we left Banna Strand, we still had o
ur togs on.  After a mile or so
we changed and had breakfast, dinner, tea and anything else in a restaurant in Tralee.  The lesson we le
arned from that experience was
that if we ever became vagrants, we would surely perish.

My family not alone suffered from having no father
,
but they were all actually roped into helping me on numerous occasions. Always we strived for more and more radio coverage
,
which meant that I was always searching for more and more transmission sites.  We had a site on the Galty Mountains which was
a
ccessible only by a three hour climb of over two thousand feet. It was the most difficult site we had and in hindsight it was a huge mistake to have put a transmitter there, but it covered hundreds of miles. I climbed this mountain with Etta twice on one day trying to fix a problem that was intermittent. It was heartbreaking having climbed it once, to arrive back down and
realize
that the problem was still there
. E
ven though I was prepared to go back alone, she would not hear of it and back the two of us went for another three hour hike to the top. We had no food
,
no water and the only thing going for us was that we were both very fit then. On another occasion myself, Adrian
,
and a friend of his set off for that mountain to fix some problem. It started out sunny enough
, and
to reduce weight, all we took with us was my coat. On that journey we got soaked by sleet, a storm hit us, and finally it rained so hard that all three of us tried to hide under my coat as we squatted down and leaned against the win
d on the open face of the Galty
Mountain. Then when it passed we headed on up to the top. Adrian
’
s friend never went with us again
,
and after a major storm when the whole site was almost blown away
,
I had had enough and we pulled it
. R
adios or not, without a road we were not going back there again.

No one would believe the things we did in the pirate radio days, or how much we suffered so that the listeners could hear us.  I’m quite sure too that all the other engineers in Ireland who went through that phase have similar stories to tell, and the pity of it is that only their families know what we went through
. W
hile I
am sure many of those engineers
prospered, in my case I was not even being paid at that time. In the end the government
,
in their wisdom
,
would legalise radio in Ireland and grant licences to about twenty four of those radio stations.

I would say it was abou
t nineteen eighty eight or nine
when the community radio known as North Cork Community Radio would begin preparing for a legal licence submission, while still broadcasting away
illegally
. A subcommittee was formed to write our license submission. A great friend of mine and Jack
’
s called DC Buckley would do the programming section, Donal Collins would handle the financial projections for us, and I would do the technical submission. In actual practice
,
DC and I actually wrote the whole document with Donal giving us the figures and acting as an unofficial editor. A book could be written about what happened next, but suffice to say that we were finally and almost reluctantly granted a licence to broadcast into North Cork by the IRTC. This Irish Radio and Television Commission were the gover
nment body set up earlier to oversee the advent of local r
adio in Ireland. Over the coming years I would de
velop many friendships with
people in that body, but at the time they were seen as the most fearsome of civil servants, and nothing could have been further from the truth.

By then Jack O’Rourke
had become a major player in the success of the community radio and he was the contact person for the IRTC on the day that the licences were awarded. I clearly remember the morning that the call came through to Jack
’
s office. We became elated and I think I stuck a Christmas tree with lights on the roof of our studios
,
which by then were relocated to the Majestic Ballroom
–
Jack
’
s old dance hall. Whatever about the pirate madness, we were truly then in the big time madness.  We had no money, no official transmission site, and not one single bit of the old equipment that we could use
. D
espite
this,
som
e of the Board members believed
that all I had to do was throw a switch and we would be back on air.  In addition we had no CEO, but we did have a deadline that had to be met, or the licence would be revoked. What we did have though
was a dedicated team of people
who
,
having obtained the license the hard way, would not allow its revocation under any c
ircumstances. It was my job to project-manage the operation while
DC
,
Jack and the rest of the Board agre
ed to somehow
find the money needed, and they did.

On January the 26th nineteen ninety NCCR
,
the original pirate radio station, began legally broadcasting under its new name of County Sound Radio, and yet another amazing chapter in my life would begin
. B
efore leaving that period of illegal transmissions, it
’
s o
nly right that I recall a short-
lived but hilarious period of illegal television broadcasting that I was involved in.

The video recorder machine had just been invented by both JVC and Sony and they were battling it out for supremacy in that new field of consumer electronics. To be able to record a television show at one hour, and watch it at a later time just utterly fascinated me. I know that both Larry and I had tried to invent this system years earlier and had failed
, so
when the machine was finally in production, I was determined that I woul
d become a real expert on it.
I studied everything that I could find about this new device. When on our trips to London I bought every video book I could find, and I specifically learned the mechanism and electronic circu
its thoroughly. In a short time
I really did become an expert and could fix almost any fault in any of them.

One day while driving along doing my television calls and thinking of these devices, I suddenly got a flash of inspiration. I knew without any doubt just how to turn a video rec
order into a television station
because I reasoned that there was a device inside the machine called a modulator, and it was in fact a very low power transmitter.  All I had to do was to make its signal stronger, and it would travel a long distance just like a radio signal. Then if one plugged an actual video camera into the video recorder, you would immediately have live television. All of this came to me as I drove home to Buttevant for a visit with the mother and father, and I got so excited that I almost did not go home
at
all
. I
wanted to turn back to try it out, but I did go home and met up with my father.  I told him all about my theory and all that he said was, “Jekus boys John, surely there’s no way that will ever work because if it did, God only knows where it might end”. The mi
nute I got back to the workshop
I proved that it would work, and I remember transmitting the science fictio
n classic
2001:
A Space Odyssey
across the workshop. I felt like Marconi did when he sent a signal across the Atlantic, and I couldn’t wait to tell Larry. He was less enthusiastic than I had expected, believing that I was already wasting enough of his time on a pirate radio, so a pirate television station did not appeal to him at all
. H
owever he did not completely veto the idea of me working on it, but it had to be on a separate business entirely.  In an
y case I soon told Jack O’Rourke
all about the new idea and convinced him that the thr
ee of us should become partners
and set up Mallow
’
s first ever local television station. He immediately agreed, and each of us invested a hundred pounds.  I bought the amplifier that I needed and we began the project.

After all the years I can still see myself setting up the aerial on the very high roof of our shop, and bea
ming out a colour-bar test-
signal secretly across Mallow town. The picture looked great and each of us became very excited at what might happen next. We saw ourselves needing programmes,
doing recordings of matches and
local events, and having commercials made for the business community
.
I was on a high all the time and never considered the illegality side of things.

Then Larry mentioned
it to an amazing man called Alan Watson. A
lan had a video production company and was a great success locally in that exciting field, but it was not live television. This is where a debate
might begin, but in any case Alan stole a march on us
and decided to do it all by himself. In fact I would probably have done the same thing myself, as he had e
very bit of equipment he needed
except
a transmitter. He did have one a
ce though
;
he knew a brilliant engineer by the name of Dessie Wallace who went off and secretly built him one in a few weeks.

The end result was that A
lan made it public that he was going to be making a local television broadcast on a Saturday night. When I heard all about it, I went ballistic. Larry and Jack gave up on the project immediately
, but I was dead set on revenge
and the minute Allan’s test card came on, I wiped it out with my transmitter. Dessie retuned his box
,
which took a few days
,
and the next week I wiped that one out as well. A ti
t for tat war then began, and A
lan was
in a pickle
with egg on his face, so he called to see me in our shop. To say that we had an argument would be putting it mildly. I was shouting so much that even Larry told me to take the argum
ent to the street, which we did. O
blivious to the many onlookers who knew us both, we shouted and cursed each other for a long time. I was scream
ing that he stole my idea and Al
lan was swearing that he got the idea at the same time and that it was pure coincidence. Then he s
aid something to me which I can
not remember now
, but it was so funny and crazy
that it stopped me in mid curse, and I actually exploded with laughter.  Then he started to laugh too, and within seconds we were both laughing so hard that we had to hold on to each other to keep standing. I’ll ne
ver forget it;
one moment were ready to kill each other
, and
the next we were in a state of utter merriment. A
fter we calmed down and passers-
by
realize
d it was alm
ost normal behaviour for us, Al
an said to me
,
“Johnny boy, I like you
. W
hy don’t we join forces and stop this arguing
?
”

If the truth be told, I
had always liked and admired A
lan, a Yorkshire man, as well, and we joined forces that day a
nd became fast friends. With Al
an’s gear and Dessie
’
s expertise we actually did set up Mallow
’
s first ever local television service. It was also the first in the country I believe.  Then the famous Chris Carey of Dublin’s Radio Nova fame found out about it because I told him how to do it during a visit to Radio Nova, and he went into shock when he saw how easy it was.  Within weeks Radio Nova had a test signal going out from Three Rock Mountain covering all of Dublin and it caused consternation in political circles. The Minister for Communications then made a statement in the Dai
l, our Parliament, saying that
whatever about pirate radio being allowed, he would not allow pirate television
. A
lmost immediately Nova
’
s gear was seized, but strangely enough not ours, which only made us braver.

We called our station Channel 3, and our test card was made by having a camera pointing at the side of a video tape box. The box had the three colours red, green, and blue painted on the side of it and it looked nice. In those great days of pirate broadcasting, as I said before, you could do whatever your imagination brought forth.

A
lan then had the genius of an idea
to record the BBC in Cork City
and re
-
transmit it an hour later in Mallow
. S
oon the whole town began to buy aerials and watch our channel. We then put my theory into practice and had a camera pointing at a chair where our ‘continuity announcer’ sat.
Our announcer was Margot, A
lan’s wife, and she gave out the latest information about the night
’s
viewing and any local news she could muster up. She looked brilliant and spoke with a naturally polished voice and attractive accent. She came across as totally professional in every way except for one rather important flaw. No one could hear a
single word she said, because A
lan had constant problems with the sound. This was due to the fact that
,
while Alan did have broadcast quality cameras, he had cheap microphones which were barely above the useless category. Margot got a lot of ribbing from friends and viewers over the days
,
but she forgave us the first few nights. A
lan said it was ‘t
eething problems
’
and he gave me a smirk when we were reviewing the broadcasts later.  The problems continued though, with the odd word or full sentence being heard now and again
. A
fter a few weeks of good and
bad sound, Margot called me in as the so-called sound expert
fr
om the radio.  She told both Alan and me
that it better be right ‘tonight’ or that was it for her
,
and she was out of it.

I was wanting to go over the
whole system personally, but Al
an would have none of it, assuring me
over and over that all was ok, “
Johnny b
oy, tis all perfect I tell you.
I tested it meself earlier, so you can relax boy
. S
he will be heard perfectly tonight”. He seemed really sure, so I was about to leave when Margot arrived all done up and ready to broadcast to the town. She asked me to
stay on, as she didn’t trust Al
an’s assurances.

We agreed that I would stand off camera and nod to her, letting her know
that she was being heard. F
or me
to hear her, I had to rely on A
lan giving me the nod, as he had concocted some system for him to hear her while he was working the camera. Still he assured us both that all would be perfect, as he had ‘personally tested it’
.
Margot’s retort was
,
“And that’s why I’m worried Alan”.

The broadcast began with Margot speaking to camera, but also looking at me and expect
ing the nod. I was looking at A
lan waiting for his n
od, but
he began fidgeting and ducking down behind a large television monitor. I saw him feverishly twiddling the volume control
,
an
d when I looked directly at him
he had this
hilarious look on his face as
he began to shake his head from side to side. Margot could see none of this as he was using the monitor as a shield. I knew then that once again there was no sound and Margot was moving her lips with nothing coming out to her viewers
’
ears. She continued to speak as a professional would, but she was developing a look of concern. I could not look her in the face any
more either because by then Al
an had completely submerged himself under the desktop and I saw him holding his hand across his mouth to prevent his laughter from being heard by Margot.  So in solidarity with him
,
and out of sheer embarrassment, I too began to slowly sink down behind my monitor and almost exploded laughing myself. Then with both of us gone and Margot left alone
,
she realized the game was up. We were peeping up from below the table top and saw Margot jump up and throw her papers away and shout, “Allan”
. T
hen she stormed out of the studio slamming the door so hard that I think she might have broken it. We collapsed on the floor in total stitches. I cou
ld not stop laughing because Al
an had the face of a schoolboy in big
,
big trouble, and he reminded me so much of how my old friend Joe Hurley looked in a scrape. After
we finally stopped laughing A
lan said to me
,
“Johnny boy, she’s fairly pissed at me tonight
. I
s there any chance I can stay at your place mate
?
”
M
ore peals of laughter followed
,
and while I knew Margot was always a gracious hostess, often filling me with tea and cakes, that night I felt that it was safer to avoid the house, so I left. I think my good friend and ‘sound expert’ may have slept in his mobile home that night. It was one of the funniest incidents that had ever happened to me in my life, and
to this day, whenever I meet Al
an, it’s as if it was just yesterday we made that broadcast, and I can
still see him in panic, then
holding his hand to his face in laughter.

We continued without our ‘continuity announcer’, and the whole idea began to take off. Soon big business began to notice our venture and we met a group in Millstreet town who were prepared to heavily invest in the project, but wanted ‘live’ BBC for racing and matches.  We concocted a plan to transmit the live BBC by micro
wave link from the top of Sliabh
na
mB
an in Tipperary to the NCCR site outside Mallow, and then on to Kerry, where it would ultimately cross the Shannon and end up in Galway City.  This idea was light years ahead of its time
,
but such was
the vision and confidence of A
lan Watson. It would have been an incredible engineering feat had we pulled it off. Then instead of Ireland having just the two television channels provided by RTE, rural Ireland would suddenly have had at least four more. We decided to run with the plan and had Italian transmission people building the equipment. After some kind of survey was done
,
the initial safe estimate suggested that we stood to make abo
ut three million on the venture:
a million a man. I had almost become a millionaire at the y
oung age of thirty six.  When A
lan phoned me with that great news I got cold feet, feeling that the government would never allow this to happen, especially because of its illegality. 
Unfortunately
I was proven so tragically right. Within weeks, and with work o
ngoing on the gear in Italy, Al
an’s studio was raided by the Department of Communications and his liv
e
lihood was confiscated. It was a trag
ic and terrible
loss for him, and a very sad day for both of my good friends. Our whole dream quickly fell apart and the
money evaporated. I believe Al
an eventually did get his video equipment back, but Channel 3 was dead. Some years later another friend called Paul O’Sullivan and I did transmit the early satellite service called Super Channel into Mallow. It too folded from lack of supp
ort in the town, and after that
I decided to never again put any kind of television service into the town, nor have I.