CRISPIAN ST.JOHN

Rather than the usual 'Bio', I've included Hans Knots' reflection on the life and career of former RNI DJ Crispian St. John, who died on Jul 17, 2002, aged 49. It is a moving and personal account.

During the more than 33 years that I've been writing about radio it was never before so difficult to search for words when compiling a story than today, July 18th 2002. Yesterday evening, after an operation, Howard G Rose died at the age of 49 years from a heart attack. Most people in radio land knew Howard as deejay Crispian St. John or Jay Jackson. He was one of the very first “British Anoraks” who I knew when I started writing for Pirate Radio News in 1969.

Very young, 16 years of age at that stage, Howard wanted to grab and eat everything which had to do with Pirate and Offshore Radio and so he read my magazine and, on regular basis, got in contact with. He did some illegal broadcasting in the UK before in 1971, as a 18 year old guy, he climbed onboard the MEBO II, the then radio ship of Radio Northsea International to realise his dream. There he became part of the international service which supplied us with the perfect sound of 'RNI’ in the ‘Summer of 71'. Howard learnt a lot from his fellow deejays like Paul May, Martin Kayne and the guy who hired him at that time, Steve Merike. 

It was on one of my visits to the Oude Boerenhofstede at Naarden, where the land based studio's of RNI were housed, where I met Crispian for the very first time. However, he didn’t see out the year of 1971 with his new employers and was sacked in October 1971. In 1972 he went to the station, where he tuned in to in the sixties: Radio Caroline. We especially enjoyed the Christmas programming in 1972, where Howard, aka Crispian, played a key role.

It seemed Crispian became restless and later, at the end of 1973, he wrote me that he would soon leave for Germany. There, in Cuxhavn, a new radio ship would be fitted out, the m.v. Jeanine. The new ship would be used for Radio Atlantis, which had earlier hired transmission time from Radio Caroline. With their own ship, off the coast of Zeeland, they started also an international service and Crispian once again was part of a very good team which included Steve England, Andy Anderson and Terry Davis.

In the Seventies Howard played a role within Independent Radio, which started with LBC and Capital Radio in 1973 as the first commercial stations in Great Britain. He could be listened to on stations like Swansea Sound and Viking Radio, but the sea still had a special feeling for Howard. It was Abe Nathan's Voice of Peace, a station in the Mediterranean, which was the next station he would work for. Howard stayed for many years there. While doing my research for my book on the history on the Voice of Peace I interviewed a lot of people and every time Crispian was mentioned as a very good deejay and friend, although some told me that he sometimes could be very pigheaded and tried several times to get things his way. 

Then more 'Rocking on the Northsea' came for Howard under his nickname Jay Jackson, sometimes adding 'J' between his both names. Not only was he was responsible for the newsroom from 1983 on board the m.v. Ross Revenge, the new Radio Caroline ship, he also made a lot of prestigious album music programs, we will never forget. The combination of the music he played, compared with his knowledge of the music, his beautiful voice made it all compelling listening. About his period on board the MV Ross Revenge Jay Jackson wrote a book called 'The Pirates Who Waived the Rules', a book which didn't get the publicity it was deserved. 

In the eighties Howard played an important role in co-starting the very first golden oldie station in Britain, Radio Sovereign. It became headlines, not only in Britain but also in Western Europe. It was an illegal station and therefore it was forced off the air, but it returned later at the Riviera in France. A Radio Magazine was his next idea. After an initial failure, a second attempt was very successful and The Radio Magazine was born, now already more than 12 year ago. In between he was also one of the co owners of KCBC, a radio station in his home town Kettering. 

Howard asked me to write for the Radio Magazine for the news from the Benelux. He also wrote on regular base for the Freewave Media Magazine since the late seventies of last century. Just last week the message came in that Howard and Patricia, his wife, had sold The Radio Magazine and the Gold Crest Communications to a big publisher. It was stated that Howard would be staying on as the key role man, but the new step in his career could not last for longer than a week. He died yesterday at the age of 49, leaving behind Patricia who married last year, and three children. I hope they have the strength in the time to come to carry this heavy lost.

As a conclusion, here's an article from hans' website in which Howard Rose, aka Chrispian St. John, describes how his RNI career came to an abrupt end: 

In October 1971 my radio career came to a halt -- at least for a few weeks. It seemed like the end of the world to me, especially as I had only ever wanted to "do radio" since I was twelve years of age! Dear Noel Edmunds, then a disc jockey on BBC Radio1, wrote an article in one of the music papers. He was claiming that the station I was working for, Radio Northsea International, was planning to establish an RNI Club which would "charge" listeners to join the club and from the income the station would pay the costs of operating. Now how Noel Edmunds could consider this viable I didn't know then, and I don't know now. RNI broadcast with 100.000 Watts on medium wave, 1,000 Watts on FM and had also two 10,000-Watt short wave transmitters. The owners paid its deejays well and the ship had not one, but two complete crews. The transmitting vessel, MEBO II, was equipped better than any previous offshore station and the running costs could never have been met by listeners, no matter how many coughed up their ten bob a year! In fact, like any normal commercial radio station -- on or offshore -- revenue was derived from spot advertising, programme end feature sponsorship and ... well, here's a difference, a few ‘pay-for-play' records!

As this was "radio" we came up with a "radio" answer. We responded to the article on the air-and it went out during my programme. Now I had a contract as a producer/presenter which clearly stated that I was responsible for the output of any programme that I presented. So when the response went beyond a simple "we are not planning that, Mr Edmunds ..." and began to get into comments about other matters, and a rather unfair comment was made about one Rodney Collins ... it was obvious that I was in for the "high jump". I was duly instructed to get on the next tender to Scheveningen harbour and appear before the big boss, John de Mol Senior, at our Hilversum offices. So I did and he was angry with me. "What am I going to do with you?" I was sacked and as protest, my colleague and old mate Mel Bowden -- known on the air as Mark Stuart -- decided he too would leave. Little did I understand that had I "hung around", I could have been back on the air after a while standing in the corner with my hands on my head! However, I didn't run to an employment tribunes claiming unfair dismissal. Nor did those deejays who were simply dropped by the Programme Director over the years because their presentation was not up to scratch. If you were told to walk in radio ... you walked... and carried on until the next job came along. It usually did ...