BEHIND THE SCENES AT RADIO CAROLINE (in the 1970's)

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Young Lyn Gilbert met Ronan O’Rahilly by chance and by 1974 was drawn in to his world. ‘ he collected people ‘ she observed ‘ me included ’. Soon, Lyn was obtaining music, paying wages and choosing DJ’s, also being Ronan’s cash mule, smuggling in Caroline income, sometimes £25.000, from Holland, and Lichtenstein. Her cover story if challenged was that she was a rich man’s mistress, flown out for dinner and sex. Other money couriers succumbed to temptation and ran off with substantial amounts of cash.

Money not stolen was often diverted in to other projects as Ronan sought just one successful venture that would deliver a fortune in to his lap, but Caroline Homes and The Loving Awareness Band were financial disasters. Caroline money also funded Ronan’s life ambition, a documentary about the Kennedy’s and Martin Luther King. Lyn became centrally involved, realising later that she had been chosen since her surname and initial matched that of a famous British film maker.

George Harrison invested after Ronan made her price the project at one third of the amount actually needed for completion. Once hooked Ronan assumed that George would keep pouring in money. ‘ that’s how I do business ‘ he explained. But George funded The Life Of Brian instead and the Kennedy film never was finished. Lyn quit in exasperation while Ronan wondered if a supposed water powered engine or a nuclear space ship might make his fortune. Or tracking down a fabled consignment of vastly expensive perfumes or even selling encapsulated flooring blocks removed from the The Chelsea Arts Club.

She returned briefly in 2000 as a favour to catalogue the stored film cans, but found a desperate and paranoid man who did not thank her, but accused her of planning to extort money from him. She wonders now how Caroline may have fared if the wasted money had instead been spent on the ship and the radio station .

Her book is an aspect of Caroline and Ronan that has never before been told and committed to print.

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