Simon Dee

In 1964, Dee joined Radio Caroline, a pirate radio station broadcasting pop music from a ship moored outside UK territorial waters. He witnessed the station's construction (and that of its rival station Radio Atlanta) at the Irish port of Greenore, and sailed with the ship to its anchorage off the coast of Essex. On 28 March, Holy Saturday, his was the first live voice on the radio station, welcoming listeners and handing over to the only other DJ on the ship at the time, Chris Moore, for the opening programme. (The first voice heard on the station, in pre-recorded promotions, was allegedly that of John Junkin).

In August 1964, Radio Atlanta merged with Caroline and became Radio Caroline South. Dee transferred to the former Atlanta ship when the original ship sailed to an anchorage off the Isle of Man to become Radio Caroline North.[8] He left in 1965 to go freelance, but had fallen out with directors of the station beforehand, having refused to play certain records and another occasion when he disobeyed the ship captain's orders.

In 1965, Dee was given a job on the BBC Light Programme, introducing a late-night show on Saturdays. He also worked on Radio Luxembourg. He told a reporter at the time that he left Caroline "while the going was good".[9] He joined the team presenting Top of the Pops in 1966, replacing David Jacobs, and the following year introduced the Monday edition of Midday Spin on the Light Programme. He fell into early disfavour on Radio 1 after twice playing Scott Walker's recording of Jacques Brel's song "Jackie", which had been banned by the BBC.[10]

In 1967, Dee began his early evening chat show Dee Time on BBC 1. The show became very popular, with up to 18 million viewers. It opened with sports announcer Len Martin announcing "It's Siiiiimon Dee!", imitating The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, and closed with a film sequence of Dee driving off in an E-type Jaguar with blonde model Lorna McDonald.[11] McDonald appeared anonymously at the time, dressed in a mini-skirt and "kinky"-style boots.[12] The opening sequence has been described as both "iconic" of the times[13] and a "visual cliché" that lent itself to parody (for example, by comedian Benny Hill).[14] Dee's biographer Richard Wiseman, who was associate producer of a "one-off" revival of Dee Time for Channel 4 in 2003, considered that the scene was what "most people who lived in Britain during the Sixties will remember him for".[15] Only two complete editions of Dee Time survive in the BBC Archives; the programmes were transmitted live and the BBC seldom retained recordings at the time. Dee became very successful and adopted an extravagant lifestyle. Also in 1967, he was the host of the Miss World contest transmitted live on BBC 1 from the Lyceum Ballroom, London. He also had cameo roles in films, including The Italian Job (1969) and Doctor in Trouble (1970).

In the 2004 Channel Four TV programme Dee Construction, fellow DJ Tony Blackburn recalled, "He used to drive up and down the King's Road in an Aston Martin driven by his secretary. To be honest, I thought that was a bit of a waste of money".[16]

Owing to a disagreement between Dee and the BBC over his huge salary demands, his contract was reviewed in 1969 and he left the channel.[7] He was being paid £250 per show (equivalent to £4100 today) and claimed ITV were offering him £1,000. It is said that the BBC's Head of Light Entertainment Bill Cotton not only refused the pay rise that Dee demanded, but said that he would cut his wages by 20% "to test his loyalty".[16] He was offered £100,000 for a two-year contract with the ITV contractor London Weekend Television and commenced a series with them in January 1970 on a Sunday evening. It proved a ratings disaster[17] as it was broadcast late in the evening after David Frost's programme. This coupled with the show only being part-networked with Granada Television screening each edition a week later on a Saturday and Yorkshire Television not transmitting the show at all. (This was common practice when ITV consisted of autonomous regional franchises)

Dee fell out with the station management and they terminated his contract after only a few months. There was friction between Dee and David Frost, part-owner of London Weekend, after whose show Dee's was broadcast. Both were talk shows, and Frost thought that some of Dee's items would make the shows too similar. Dee felt that Frost was deliberately sabotaging his show. After a bizarre interview with actor George Lazenby, who outlined at length his theories about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, the show was dropped.[5]

In June 1970, Dee joined his former Radio Caroline boss, Ronan O'Rahilly, to campaign for pirate radio and against the Labour government's Marine Broadcasting Offences Act, issuing a poster[18] of Prime Minister Harold Wilson dressed as Chinese dictator Mao Tse-tung. Pirate radio remained a political issue and, in the run up to the 1970 general election that summer, Radio Caroline International[19] launched a campaign in support of the Conservative Party, which supported commercial radio. Dee later claimed that there was an Establishment plot against him because of his open opposition to Wilson, and later released government files showing that he was being monitored by the Security Service.[20] Dee also believed that his phone had been tapped because of his opposition to Britain's mooted membership of the Common Market.[21]

Having alienated both the BBC and independent television, Dee disappeared from the airwaves. He signed on for unemployment benefit at the Fulham labour exchange, giving rise to considerable press coverage. Unable to revive his show business career, he took a job as a bus driver.[22]

Dee later found some brief broadcasting jobs. In the late 1970s, he was signed to appear as holiday cover on the Reading-based Radio 210, but never made it to air. In 1989, he appeared to have established himself as host of Sounds of the '60s on BBC Radio 2, but this engagement came to an end after only 6 months in the slot amid disputes with the BBC about the show's location in Bristol and his wish for it to be transmitted live.[15] In 2003, Victor Lewis-Smith arranged for a one-off new live edition of Dee Time to be broadcast on Channel Four, following Dee Construction, which covered Dee's career.[5]