From across the North Sea, Europe calls

1971 Yes, this is where it all started, the enduring love affair with Europe, and all that it brought me.

The original pirate stations in the North Sea had been forced off the air - in a way which had instilled a permanent rebel soul in me - and the BBC now broadcast Radio 1. Which was better than what we had before, at least. But a new pirate ship, Radio NordSee International, was broadcasting, and it was partly broadcasting to a Dutch audience. I was quite intrigued. They had their own bands, they were not bad, and they were all singing in English. One of them, Shocking Blue, broke into the UK charts, and their sultry female vocalist Mariska Veres became the stuff of all our teenage fantasies. But on RNI, which could only be received on the south east side of London and down to the coast, there were more interesting bands for me. There was Golden Earring of course, of whom much more later, but also Sandy Coast, and this classy  prog-rock band Earth&Fire. And later there would be Focus. 

And I was already listening to this stuff when that summer, at Eltham Park pool, I met Bea, a savvy and to me, exotic Dutch girl, who was terribly impressed that I liked Earth& Fire. And I decided that Europe was something to be investigated and embraced.