Martin Fisher From Chelmsford, Essex, Martin was introduced to the joys of radio listening by his grandfather at an early age. Martin was a fan of the offshore stations of the sixties and, on leaving school, followed his father and grandfather into the Marconi company where he became a technical apprentice. He was listening to Radio Caroline in 1976 when he heard an advertisement for a transmitter engineer. Fired up with enthusiasm he wrote off - and heard nothing. A few weeks later he noticed that the station was now giving out a different mailing address. Thinking his original application may have got lost in the change-over, Martin wrote again. A week later he was contacted and invited for an interview and, within a few more weeks, he was out on board the Mi Amigo. He had applied to be an engineer but was invited to be a DJ too. His first show was in the early hours of 11th January 1977 and he quickly became one of the station's regular presenters while still looking after the technical side as well. He had been told he would be working one month on the ship, one month off, but when his first stint aboard lasted eleven weeks, he realised that this was wishful thinking! Martin's last show from the Mi Amigo was on 26th June 1979. He tells us: “I remember having a bit of a break after that, but I did go back to the Mi Amigo once more, for just one week starting 15th September 1979. I was persuaded to return. The station was off the air. When I arrived on board at 9.30 in the morning the ship was like a ghost ship with nothing running. By 3pm we were back on the air! I had repaired a problem with the voltage regulator on the Henschel generator, and it was this generator that largely kept the station going during the last few months from the Mi Amigo. I did not present any shows during that last week, as there were a lot of jocks on board, all trying to squeeze into a few hours each evening. I had an interview lined up at the BBC the following week. I joined BBC TV as an engineer in October. After nearly 3 years with Caroline, it was sadly time to move on. Caroline had been a fantastic experience but clearly the Mi Amigo was not going to last for ever and for various reasons it was time to move on.” After his time with BBC television, Martin went on to work as an engineer in commercial radio although he still found time to make a short return to Caroline in the eighties when it was broadcasting from the Ross Revenge. He presented a few shows as “The Night Owl” in July/August 1985 (see The Pirate Radio Hall of Fame ‘Eighties Supplement’). He can currently be heard on the internet incarnation of Radio Caroline. There are some recent photos of him, taken at a 2018 DJs' reunion here and a 2022 broadcast here, and there is an interview with him here. (This photo shows Martin on the air. He says “Those orange T-shirts - we were all wearing them at the time. They were like the Caroline uniform. Actually they were Miss Sheila T-shirts, one of Radio Mi Amigo's advertisers. We did not get many perks on the ship at that time, so when a load of T-shirts arrived we all had one.” Our thanks to Martin for the information, the photo and the audio.) n Fisherless